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“ The runaways were w^aiting on the doorstep.” 

Frontispiece. SeepagelO. 





Old-Home Day 

at 

Hazeltown 


By 

A. G. Plympton 

Author of “Dear Daughter Dorothy,” “The 
Schoolhouse in the Woods,” etc. 


Illustrated hy Clara E. Atwood 


Boston 

Little, Brown, and Company 
1906 


IIHRARY of OON’GRESS 
Two Conifip Rftcoivert 


AUG 27 1906 


C^ nyritfhl tnti-y 

Z 7,f^0 6 

CLASS XXc. No. 

/£j^aa8‘ 


COPY B. 



/ 


Copyright f igo6. 

By a. G. Plympton. 

jill rights reserved 


Published October, 1906. 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


The runaways were waiting on the door- 
step ” Frontispiece 


'^Aunt Ann Sarah was that Grossest of 
created beings, — a cross^a^ woman ” 

Page 

; 2 

^^She stood helplessly by and let her 
gather a great bunch” .... 

ce 

38^ 

“ Reading consent in the other’s eyes she 
began to dance daintily ” . . . . 

ec 

63 '' 

As Roxy approached this side door she 
came upon a family group ” . 

t( 

89'^ 

Grandmother Jane way’s cap proved to 
be a dainty affair of white tarlatan ” 

es 

109 



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OLD-HOME DAY 
AT HAZELTOWN 


CHAPTER ONE 
"NT ANN SARAH was on her 



knees before her idol, — the 


kitchen floor, which she was 
scrubbing slowly, silently, solemnly, as 
one performs a sacred rite. 

‘‘ A good housekeeper is known by 
her kitchen floor, an’ mine is clean 
enough to eat off of any time,” she 
boasted to the world at large, as at 
last she straightened her back and 
surveyed first the large bewashed tract 
in front of her, then, with a glance 
over her shoulder, the small area of 
dry floor. 


1 


[ 1 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


With the backward glance she dis- 
covered a child, with a pitcher in her 
hand, watching her from the doorway. 
The girl was very pretty, with dusky 
black hair in tumbled curls, beautiful, 
dark, long-lashed eyes, and red lips. 
She was smiling in a decidedly friendly 
way, and was altogether so attractive 
that to welcome her kindly might have 
seemed the most natural thing in the 
world. However, her aunt shook out 
her floor-cloth with an exasperated 
flap, and said in anything but a cor- 
dial tone: 

“Well, what do you want now, 
Roxy Dillingham?” (Aunt Ann Sarah 
was that crossest of created beings, a 
cross fat woman. In the nature of 
things, with her well-nourished body 
and padded nerves, a fat woman is 
good-natured; but if by chance she 
[ 2 ] 



“ Aunt Ann Sarah was that Grossest of created heings, — a cross /of woman.” 

Page 2. 





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Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


is ill-natured, the crossest of thin 
women is amiable in comparison.) 

‘‘Well, what do you want now?’’ 
she repeated, implying unutterable 
things by the change of emphasis. 
Then, with the air of a judge before 
whom a criminal has been repeatedly 
brought up : “ This is the third time 
you have been down here this morning 
for water! ” 

“ It ’s hot upstairs, and grandmother 
is thirsty,” said the child, relying upon 
the reasonableness of her errand to 
advance a few steps. 

“ Thirsty,” snorted the woman. 
“ Some people would be sure to take 
the time to be thirsty when there’s a 
prospect of a water famine. Did you 
tell her that your Uncle Timothy says 
that the well ’s most dry? ” 

Roxy, the champion of grandmother, 

[ 3 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


gave her black curls a toss, and with a 
significant look at the wet floor, said 
firmly: 

“ It is n’t dry yet, and I should think 
grandmother might have a little; but 
if you don’t want her to have it, I ’ll 
go over and get some at the Thomsons’ 
well.” 

“Don’t you dare go asking favors 
of the neighbors ! ” cried the irate floor- 
worshipper, turning so that one snap- 
ping black eye was visible above her 
fat shoulder. “ I ask no favors, an’ 
I don’t want anybody to ask favors of 
me. Those Thomsons are just the sort 
of folks that would be runnin’ in all 
the time, if you ’d let ’em, an’ you 
know very well I haven’t spoken to 
’Liza Thomson for weeks. Now you 
just get that water at the pump an’ 
be quick about it.” 

[ 4 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Never having any desire to prolong 
the time spent in her aunt’s company, 
Roxy began to pump vigorously, look- 
ing meantime not at the pitcher but 
out of the corner of her eyes at the 
figure on the fioor. The way her 
aunt set to work with a fury of en- 
ergy that made her quiver all over 
was, in the child’s opinion, positively 
fascinating. 

In recrossing the floor, she had the 
misfortune, due to haste, to spill some 
of the precious fluid, bringing an out- 
burst of anger upon herself at which 
even a doughtier person than Roxy 
Dillingham might quail. 

“ If it was n’t for your grandmother 
I ’d give you the soundest whipping 
you ever had, an’ if you presume to 
answer back, I ’ll give it to you now. 
Good Lord! when I married Timothy 
[ 5 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Dillingham, an’ had you an’ your 
grandma saddled onto me, ’twas the 
worst day’s work I ever done.” It 
must be confessed that when angry. 
Aunt Ann Sarah’s language was not 
of the choicest. 

“ Well, I ’m just as sorry as you 
are,” retorted Roxy, whose good spirits 
and beaming affability never withstood 
this taunt, “ but we won’t be saddled 
onto you any longer than we can help. 
When my father comes back, he ’ll take 
us right away.” / 

“ Sakes alive!” cried Aunt Ann 
Sarah, looking up in contemptuous 
astonishment at the superfluous one 
who was absolutely rigid with pride 
and dignity. “ Sakes alive, do you 
mean to tell me that you are such a 
fool as to think your pa, after bein’ 
gone all these years an’ never writin’ 
[ 6 ] 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


or sendin’ any word of himself to his 
folks, will ever come back? ” 

“ Yes I do, I know he ’ll come back,” 
the child asserted with an unflinching 
pride and courage. “ Grandmother is 
sure of it too. If we weren’t, we 
couldn’t stand it.” 

“ Stand what? ” asked the other with 
snapping eyes, but she undoubtedly 
understood what was meant, for she 
instantly added: ‘'I guess you’d have 
to stand it unless you want to go to 
the poor-house. There is n’t any one, 
so far as I know, that ’s lookin’ for an 
old woman an’ an impudent young one 
to take care of. As for your pa, I doubt 
if he ’s in the land of the livin’. He 
never was wuth shucks anyway, an’ if 
he comes back, instid of takin’ you off 
my hands he ’ll be saddled onto me, too, 
along with you an’ your grandmother.” 
[^] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


She removed her bucket to another 
spot with an emphatic thump, which 
served as a period to her insulting re- 
marks. Having had her say,” she 
fell to work again, and Roxy, with 
burning cheeks, left the kitchen. As 
she flew up the staircase she spilt more 
of the contents of the pitcher, but, see- 
ing grandmother patiently waiting for 
the water, she stopped, panting (which 
was the effect of rage and not of run- 
ning), and carried it more carefully. 

‘‘ Was Ann Sarah — er — put out? ” 
the old lady asked, delicately. “ I 
thought I heard words between you.” 

‘‘ Oh, I guess she feels the heat,” 
said Roxy, with a grimace. “ She was 
washing the kitchen floor and didn’t 
want me to come in.” 

“What did she say? Didn’t I hear 
her talking about the well? ” 

[ 8 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Knowing that if she suspected the 
water was low, grandmother would 
stint herself, Roxy had never told her 
of the threatened disaster, and now 
adroitly evaded the question. 

‘‘ Oh, she said that anybody might 
eat off her kitchen floor.” 

‘‘ Well, I don’t know as I want to 
eat otF any kitchen floor. A table is 
good enough for me,” grandmother 
remarked in a voice that trembled a 
little with her gurgling laugh. But 
now, as she took the tumbler from her 
granddaughter’s hand and observed 
the angry red spots on her cheeks, she 
said more soberly: “Don’t you mind 
what your Aunt Ann Sarah said if 
’twas anything unpleasant. I always 
make it a point to forget unpleasant 
things as soon as ever I can.” 

“ Well then,” Roxy blazed out, “ I 

[ 9 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


can’t stay here in this house another 
minute. Come on, Grandmother, let ’s 
go somewhere.” 

“Where?” said grandmother; for 
the best thing, or one of the best 
things, about grandmother was that she 
could “ make believe ” just like a child. 
In fact, a person condemned to live 
with Ann Sarah Dillingham on the 
same conditions as grandmother and 
Roxy, who could not by an effort of 
the imagination transport himself at a 
moment’s notice to another part of the 
globe, would be miserable indeed. 

Unhappily it is no uncommon thing 
to see an old man or woman occupying 
a begrudged corner of another’s fire- 
side, but in this case the home be- 
longed to grandmother herself. The 
house was hers although she was ban- 
ished to this hot little room under the 
[ 10 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


eaves, and forbidden even the kitchen 
in which so many interesting things 
happened. 

And she was no superannuated old 
woman with dull mind and senses, fit 
only for the shelf. In her prime she 
had been an active woman, turning off 
a vast amount of work in a smooth, 
quiet way, yet having a faculty of find- 
ing time to exercise her gift for so- 
ciety; and she was still perfectly able 
to work and to play. She longed to 
fill a place in the world, above all to 
be useful, to take a hand in the baking 
and brewing and mopping and pickling, 
and other such humble activities which 
make the world go round. 

When Ann Sarah Tibbets had mar- 
ried grandmother’s second son, Tim- 
othy, she had stipulated that he should 
make his mother sell the homestead at 
[ 11 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Hazeltown, where the family then lived, 
and buy another in East Bowditch, the 
home of the Tibbets; and a year after- 
wards grandmother had been badgered 
into making this foolish move. In her 
opinion this was the cruellest wrong 
she had suffered at the hands of her 
daughter-in-law, but Mrs. Timothy, for 
her part, thought it a meagre compen- 
sation for the trial of having an old 
woman and a child in her home. 

“Where shall we go?” said grand- 
mother, rejoiced that, by her bright 
fancies, Roxy could find escape from 
troubles real and pressing. 

“Let’s go to the world’s fair — in 
St. Louis, you know,” she answered. 
“ I heard Nelly Banks tell about her 
trip and it was beautiful, perfectly 
beautiful. We can stop over night 
with the Rodmans, in New York, and 
[ 12 ] 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


we ’ll take our meals in a basket, to 
save expense.” 

On these imaginary trips they were 
always exceedingly, and it might seem 
unnecessarily, economical. It made a 
journey more real and gave them the 
feeling of being themselves through 
it all. 

“ Well,” said grandmother, “ I came 
pretty near going to the first fair, — 
the Centennial they called that one. It 
was in Philadelphia, and came off long 
before you were born; but Louisa, your 
great aunt, went in my place. She was 
a great hand at describing things, and 
she talked so much about what she ’d 
seen that I got to feeling I ’d seen 
’em too. She said, what with the 
heat and the crowd and all, I had the 
best of it, but, la, I like crowds. It 
takes people to make a crowd, and 
[ 13 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


I do take considerable interest in 
people.” 

“So do I,” Roxy exclaimed; “all 
kinds of people, — the rich, elegant 
ones that drive past in their carriages, 
lolling against the cushions as if they 
were too weak to hold themselves up, 
and the carryall people, and the beg- 
gars, and the tramps. I try to imagine 
what they do with themselves, and how 
they feel, and I wish I could know their 
stories. I should so like to be one of 
those dressy, tiptoe fine, little girls for 
a day or two; but then, if the factory 
girls came along in long files, — you 
know the way they do, — I should want 
to leave off being fine and be one of 
them^ and make shoes or buttons or 
something in a great noisy factory, and 
get paid off every week. If I should 
ever travel in foreign countries and go 
[ 14 ] 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


to a royal palace, I should be awfully 
interested in the king and the queen, 
the princes and princesses, and the 
ladies-in- waiting, and the lords and 
ladies of high degree; but after a while 
I should want to go downstairs and see 
what the people in the kitchen were like.” 

“Do you know who ’twas calling 
on your Aunt Ann Sarah yesterday? ” 
asked grandmother, when Roxy’s breath 
gave out. 

“Yes; it was a Mrs. Janeway.” 

“ Not Maria Janeway from Hazel- 
town? ” 

“ Yes, I think that ’s the one. Grand- 
mother. She came from Hazeltown. 
And she is lovely, perfectly lovely! I 
saw her through a crack of the door 
when I came home from the post-office. 
I only saw her a minute or two, be- 
cause Aunt Ann Sarah got up and shut 
[ 15 ] 


Old‘Home Day at Hazeltown 


the door, but I got a good look at her. 
She didn’t say much, but at the end 
of all Aunt Ann Sarah’s sentences she 
gave a deep, polite sort of nod, which 
made the bird of Paradise on her bon- 
net kind of float out. It was perfectly 
lovely. When I ’m a lady, I ’m going 
to have a bonnet like that, and when I 
make calls, instead of talking, just nod 
every now and then, a long, slow, up 
and down kind of way, as a horse nods, 
and make my bird of paradise float 
out.” 

“ Well, if you are n’t going to talk 
you ’ll have to change considerable,” 
said grandmother. “ And it does sur- 
prise me that you should want to wear 
a bird. I never could abide the fashion 
of ornamenting a bonnet with wings, 
let alone a whole bird, and I thought 
you were too fond of such little crea- 
[ 16 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


tures to encourage folks to destroy them 
for any such purpose.” 

“ Why, so I am,” said Roxy, looking 
rather startled. ‘‘I — I did n’t realize 
that they were birds at all. They seem 
like ornaments, made up by the mil- 
liners. Of course I wouldn't wear a 
real live — or rather what once was a 
real live — bird for anything. And then, 
as you say, I ’d have to change a great 
deal to sit still and say nothing. No, 
I should n’t like that at all. Still, I do 
think Mrs. Janeway very interesting.” 

“ She was real dressy, I suppose,” said 
grandmother with interest. “ Tom J ane- 
way was fond of dress, and he would 
pick out a stylish woman for a wife.” 

Oh, yes, she is very stylish,” Roxy 
answered with conviction. “ My ! Aunt 
Ann Sarah looked so dowdy beside her, 
though before she went to the door she 
2 [ 17 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


stopped to put on her empire wrapper, 
which is so becoming because it does n’t 
show that she has n’t any waist. Mrs. 
Janeway sat in the very middle of the 
sofa, with her skirts spread so as to 
take it all up. The tips of her toes 
were pointed out just so, each alike, 
instead of going just anywhere, like 
other people’s. And then, you know, 
there was the bird of paradise floating 
out at the top. Is that the Mrs. Jane- 
way you know. Grandmother? ” 

“ Why, I never saw her. Tom Jane- 
way went to Cincinnati and married 
her there, and for a long time they 
lived out West somewhere. Dear, I 
wish I could have seen her! About 
the time you were born she had twins, 
and I can’t remember whether they 
were both boys or both girls, or one 
boy and one girl.” 

[ 18 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Somehow it seems as if they must 
be girls, and have little birds of paradise 
on their heads,” said Roxy, laughing. 

“ If I could only have seen her, I 
should have asked her about the twins,” 
said grandmother, sighing; “and I 
could have sent a message to her 
mother-in-law, who was my nearest 
neighbor and best friend for years an’ 
years.” 

Roxy looked up sympathetically at 
the old face, appreciating to the full 
grandmother’s feelings. 

“ I would n’t care,” she said at last. 
“ You wouldn’t have enjoyed it much, 
for Aunt Ann Sarah would be in the 
room, interrupting you all the time. 
Mrs. Janeway would say, ‘ Mother 
Jane way will be surprised to hear how 
spry I found you,’ and then Aunt Ann 
Sarah would shake her head and tell 
[ 19 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


in her company voice how feeble you 
are, and about the ‘ spells ’ you have 
— Grandmother,” Roxy interrupted 
herself to ask, ‘‘ what does she mean 
by your ‘ spells ’? ” 

I don’t have any spells,” grand- 
mother indignantly answered. “ Once, 
coming into the kitchen, I stubbed my 
toe on the step and was faint for half 
a minute, an’ ever since Ann Sarah has 
been talking about my spells! ” 

“Well,” Roxy went on, “she would 
tell about your spells, and, when you 
weren’t looking, tap her head, and 
whatever was talked about speak for 
you as if you couldn’t speak for your- 
self, that way she does, — ‘ Grandma 
thinks so and so, don’t you. Grandma? ’ 
Ugh, she makes me tired! ” 

“ I reckon we had better be start- 
ing for Sto Louis,” said grandmother, 
[ 20 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


smiling; for, although she would n’t en- 
courage Roxy in remarks so uncompli- 
mentary to her aunt, she appreciated 
her warm-hearted championship. Life 
would have been very dismal, she real- 
ized, without this dear grandchild with 
her fund of cheerfulness, her sympathy, 
and the bright intelligence, by reason 
of which she inevitably realized the 
situation of things. According to 
grandmother, “ a person who does n’t 
‘ take things in ’ never makes good 
company.” 

Many people seem to think that old 
men and women have no individuality, 
and that the things of this world seem 
to them very far away; but there was 
a great deal of human nature in Grand- 
mother Dillingham. 

‘‘ Do look at your mother, Timothy,” 
said Aunt Ann Sarah, in an amiable 
[ 21 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


frame of mind one day, calling atten- 
tion to the rapt expression on the hand- 
some old face. ‘‘I reckon she ’s thinkin’ 
of your father, an’ longin’ for the time 
she ’ll meet him by the shinin’ shore.” 

How surprised and horrified she 
would have been had she known that 
grandmother’s thoughts were occupied 
with a compliment paid to her beauti- 
ful eyes by a certain scant-o’-grace who 
once visited Hazeltown and tried by all 
his city arts to outrival young Timothy 
Dillingham ! 

“ There ’s a great difference in folks 
in sightseeing,” grandmother went on. 
“ Louisa did n’t spare herself any, an’ 
she saw everything, from the Corliss 
engine — that was the great show at 
the Centennial — down to the button 
exhibit from East Bowditch; while the 
Barkers (Mrs. Barker and the girls — 
^ [ 22 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Jemima and Caroline — Caroline was 
the cross-eyed one) couldn’t tell you 
about anything. They were so afraid 
of losing each other, they said. Think 
of going to a world’s fair an’ keeping 
your eyes on Caroline Barker! And 
the joke is that they did lose each other 
just at the last, — the only time that it 
could make any difference, — so that 
they lost their train. You see Mrs. 
Barker was determined to get some gf 
the Vienna rolls to bring home, and the 
girls wanted souvenirs that would keep, 
so just at the last moment, as I told 
you, they separated, arranging to meet 
at the Chinese pavilion, which you 
couldn’t mistake, they said, for any- 
thing else. But the minute they found 
themselves alone in the crowd, it seems 
they got panicky, like a person lost in 
the woods, and went round and round 
[ 23 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


and round that Chinese pavilion with- 
out seeing it, jostling against each other 
half a dozen times, more likely than not, 
and when they came home they could n’t 
tell you about anything but the Chinese 
pavilion, an’ how they lost each other in 
the crowd.” 

During this recital Koxy, with rather 
an absent expression, sat very quietly 
on the footstool at grandmother’s feet, 
hugging her knees. Her thoughts had 
probably not been occupied by the 
Barkers’ Centennial experience, for at 
the end of the story she said: 

“ Grandmother dear, tell me about 
my father.” 


[ 24 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


CHAPTER TWO 

G randmother folded her 

hands in her lap and lay back 
in her rocker, smiling brightly 
upon Roxy, for there was nothing she 
liked better than to talk about her eldest 
son when no one was present to point 
out his shortcomings. 

“Was he like Uncle Timothy? ” 
Roxy questioned. 

“ Well, I should say not,"’ she an- 
swered, in a tone rather uncompli- 
mentary to Uncle Timothy. “ He was 
my first born, and I Ve always held 
that a woman’s first child, like the first 
flower on a plant, is the strongest and 
handsomest. I was a first child my- 
self,” added the old lady, laughing, 
“ and so were you.” 

[ 25 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“ If he was so fine, Grandmother,” 
said Roxy, averting her eyes, why 
was it that he went off and left us to 
Uncle Timothy, who was only second 
best? ” 

“ To begin with, your fattier never 
could abide farming. He was not 
made for plodding along year in and 
year out, like Timothy,” answered 
grandmother, with the animus of a 
mother defending a favorite child, 
“ and then, when your mother died, he 
was all broken up and couldn’t stay 
on where he had been so happy. He 
was a dear son to me, always doing 
the pleasant things a woman likes, an’ 
I don’t believe he ’s gone off for good 
and all. If he ’s alive, Roxy, he ’ll 
come back. He was a proud boy, was 
Edward,” the mother mused. ‘‘ He set 
out to get a fortune, an’ most likely 
[ 26 ] 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


he won’t come back till he ’s justified 
himself for leaving.” 

“ Yes, he ’ll come back,” Roxy as- 
sented, proudly and stoutly, for hers 
was a loyal nature. She had never 
owned, even to herself, that he had 
neglected her, or that in leaving her 
to the unwilling care of others he had 
failed in love and duty; wherefore her 
aunt’s assertions had cruelly hurt and 
distressed her. “ Yes,” she went on, 
“ I ’ve always believed he would come, 
and somehow, lately, I ’ve felt surer 
of it than ever. Whenever a stranger 
walks up the street my heart goes pit- 
a-pat with the thought that perhaps it 
is he, and when I go to the post-office 
I always think that very likely I shall 
find a letter there, saying he is coming. 
Oh, when I find nothing but circulars 
about incubators and things for Uncle 
[ 27 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Timothy, it seems as if I could n’t bear 
it; for, Grandmother, I have waited 
such a long, long time.” 

So you have,” said grandmother, 
who well knew the bitterness and strain 
of this day-after-day disappointment, 
“ but come, child, forget it. Let us go 
to St. Louis.” 

Roxy hid her face, that its gloom 
should not be reflected upon grand- 
mother’s. 

“ I' — I don’t feel a bit like travel- 
ling,” she said, her voice muffled in the 
folds of the old lady’s black gown. 
“ I ’d rather talk about father. If — 
I mean, when he comes home, will he 
stay here with Uncle Timothy and 
Aunt Ann Sarah? ” 

“Well, I calculate, unless he has 
changed more ’n one could expect, he 
won’t stay here twenty-four hours. 

[ 28 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


He ’ll take us away with him some- 
where. Perhaps he ’ll buy or hire a 
little house in the village. I do hope 
he won’t blame me for selling the 
homestead.” 

“ Perhaps he ’ll buy one of those nice 
ones that Mr. Binney is building on 
Vine Street,” cried Boxy, looking with 
shining eyes at her fellow-sufferer. 
‘‘Yes, I’m sure he will; but, anyway, 
how perfectly lovely it will be to live 
in some house all by ourselves without 
— well, anybody, that is ‘ particular,’ 
and has to have a kitchen floor so you 
can eat off of it! We’ll always be 
pleasant to each other, won’t we, Grand- 
mother, and only just our kind of clean, 
and we ’ll have soda biscuits as often as 
we want them, made your way? ” 

“Yes, it will be a real home,” said 
grandmother. 


[ 29 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“A real home!” the child echoed, 
“ where we can sit where we please with- 
out feeling that we ’re ‘ always round.’ 
Do you know at school, when the girls 
used to talk about their homes, — how 
their friends would come to tea or to 
spend the day with them, and how they 
had candy-scrapes in the kitchen, or 
sang hymns on Sunday round the fire, 
or danced in the parlor in the evening, 
— I just used to envy them their home- 
sickness. I think a real home must be 
the nicest thing in the world.” 

“Yes ’tis, dear,” said grandmother, 
nodding. “ But as you have n’t had it 
while you ’re young, I hope you ’ll have 
it when you ’re old and need it most.” 

“And I suppose father would send 
me back to school? ” 

“ Yes, indeed he would,” the old lady 
declared. “ The Dillinghams always 
[ 30 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


thought a good deal of education. I 
graduated myself at the old Academy 
at Bloomfield, and I gave my children 
the best advantages I could. Even your 
Uncle Timothy would n’t have had you 
taken out of school if it had n’t been 
for — ” Grandmother drew herself up 
with a start. “ You see, dearie, your 
aunt was a Tibbets and brought up 
differently. The Tibbets are great 
folks for saving, and Ann Sarah 
thought too much money was spent on 
your schoolin’.” 

Roxy drew a long, quivering breath. 
She rested her elbow on her knees and 
dropped her face in her hands. She 
sat very quietly for a few moments, 
thinking of her great disappointment, 
when she was recalled at the end of 
the winter term from the Bloomfield 
Academy, where she had been for two 
[ 31 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


years. All that time she had looked 
forward to her graduation as the hap- 
piest day of her life, for the graduates 
of that famous old school have no diffi- 
culty in getting good positions to teach, 
and Roxy meant to make a home for 
herself and grandmother. She had 
worked hard. When other girls had 
shirked work for the sake of some 
“ fun,” she had thought of grand- 
mother at the mercy of that sharp 
tongue, and the pleasure-loving child 
had resisted every attempt to draw her 
away from her books. She had worked 
hard, and earned her triumphs. Her 
progress had been continuous and sure. 
Then suddenly came the summons 
from home that seemed to end all. 
The schools at East Bowditch were 
very poor, and at such a long distance, 
too, from Uncle Timothy’s farm, that 
[32 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


in winter weather she would often lose 
a week at a time. 

Her education, therefore, had become 
a knotty problem, which grandmother 
had vainly tried to solve, while Roxy 
studied by herself, trying at least not to 
forget what she had learned, and hoping 
for some change in affairs which would 
enable her to carry out her plans. 

Twice or thrice grandmother looked 
over her glasses at the disconsolate 
figure, and at last she said: 

“I wouldn’t fret, dearie. It will 
all come out right, I know. If I were 
you, I ’d go out of doors. It ’s time 
to go for the mail.” 

“ So it is,” said Roxy, glancing at 
the clock and brightening visibly; and 
then, with a significant look, ‘‘I’m 
going to get you a letter.” 

[ 33 ] 


3 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


CHAPTER THREE 

R oxy found nothing at the post- 
office but a newspaper for 
Uncle Timothy, and she was 
smitten with that sharp disappointment 
of which she had spoken to grand- 
mother. Or, rather, the disappointment 
was ususually acute, owing to the in- 
cidents of the morning. A wave of 
angry despair rolled over her. It was 
incredible, unbearable, this long post- 
ponement of her hope! She would 
have enjoyed kicking something or 
throwing Uncle Timothy’s newspaper 
across the store. 

“ Are you sure there was n’t one 
letter left in the mail-bag? ” she asked 
the postmaster, Mr. Denny. 

[ ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 

He turned his right ear toward her 
(for the other was stone deaf), thus 
looking at her from his profile, like a 
hen ; and she was obliged to repeat her 
question. 

He chose to consider himself insulted 
by it, as if he had been accused of un- 
fitness for the position he held, so that, 
instead of relieving her feelings in the 
manner mentioned, poor Roxy was 
obliged to apologize, and eat humble 
pie. 

It was for this reason that when, 
having succeeded in appeasing him, 
he said: “See here, Roxy, here’s a 
letter with a special delivery stamp 
on it for Miss Eliza Thomson. Won’t 
you take it to her? ” she disliked to 
refuse. However, she took it with so 
much hesitation that he said testily: 

“ It ain’t dynamite, child. ’T won’t 
[ 35 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


hurt you. An’ you ’ve got to pass right 
by the Thomsons to get home.” 

As far as Roxy herself was con- 
cerned she had not the shghtest objec- 
tion to taking the letter. She liked to 
be obliging, and the Thomsons in her 
opinion were very agreeable. But if 
Aunt Ann Sarah should know that 
she had served them in any way, she 
wouldn’t be forgiven in a hurry. 

“ I ’ll give you ten cents for taking 
it,” urged Mr. Denny, “ an’ ’t won’t 
take you two steps out of your way.” 

“ I don’t want any ten cents,” Roxy 
answered, with a toss of her black curls. 
“ I ’ll take it.” 

As she walked along she wondered 
how it would feel to have a letter with 
a special delivery stamp on it, — for 
that signified that it was very impor- 
tant. If she had found a letter with 
[ 36 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


a special delivery stamp on it for 
grandmother, it would undoubtedly 
have been that long-looked-for one 
which would end all their miseries. 

Suppose Mr. Denny had made a 
mistake, and this letter really was for 
grandmother! But no — by no pos- 
sibility could Miss Eliza Thomson be 
made to mean Mrs. Susan Dillingham. 

It was Roxy’s intention to leave the 
letter at the door of the Thomson’s 
house and go right away, but Eliza 
and her mother were both in the front 
yard weeding the flower-beds, and Mrs. 
Thomson insisted upon giving her some 
pinks. 

They were clove pinks, — the old- 
fashioned, fragrant kind that grand- 
mother liked ; but how could she, 
considering the feud between them, 
carry Mrs. Thomson’s pinks into Aunt 
[ 37 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Ann Sarah’s house! To refuse them, 
however, seemed to her so discourteous 
that she stood helplessly by and let her 
gather a great bunch. 

Before the pinks were all picked Miss 
Eliza, who had opened her letter burst 
out: 

“ Oh, mother, it ’s from Bella, and 
she wants me to spend either to-morrow 
or the next day with her. It ’s home 
week in Hazeltown, and she says there 
is going to be a reunion of the Thom- 
son family. To-morrow there are to 
be the speeches and all that, and the 
next day an excursion to the Old Fort 
grounds.” 

“ You can’t go to-morrow,” said her 
mother, “ for Miss Woolley is coming 
to cut your new dress. It ’s the only 
day she can give us, ’cause she told me 
herself that she ’s driven to death.” 

[ 38 ] 



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Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


“ I ’d rather go the second day,” 
said Eliza, ‘‘ because I should only 
see Thomsons on Tuesday, and most 
likely there will be other old-home- 
week folks going to the Old Fort 
grounds.” 

“ Our family came from Hazeltown 
too ! ” Roxy exclaimed. “ Oh, I wish 
the Dillinghams would have an old- 
home day ! ” 

“ Wal, why don’t they? ” asked Mrs. 
Thomson, getting up from her stoop- 
ing posture and giving Roxy the pinks. 

“ The old homestead belongs to the 
Cummingses now; and besides, there 
aren’t enough Dillinghams to make 
much of a reunion.” 

“ I know of one Dillingham that 
would make one too many, if ’twas 
to be a very enjoyable affair,” giggled 
Miss Eliza. 


.[ 39 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“You oughtn’t to have said that,” 
said her mother, as Roxy moved away, 
but not in so low a voice as to be 
unheard by that sharp-eared young 
person. 

“ She did n’t know who I meant,” 
said Miss Eliza. 

“ Lor’, yes she did. Roxy is awful 
cute,” insisted Mrs. Thomson. 

“ Anyhow, I don’t believe her aunt 
makes herself so agreeable to her and 
the old lady that it hurts their feelings 
to hear her ill spoken of. She ’s a tartar 
if ever there was one.” 

Roxy hurried on, her nose buried in 
the pinks, trying to think of some way 
to smuggle them up into grandmother’s 
room unseen. 

They would look so pretty in the 
glass pitcher, she thought, and fill the 
room with their spicy fragrance. And 
[ 40 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


then grandmother and pinks seemed, 
somehow, to belong together. 

This conceit, indeed, was not so far- 
fetched, for there was no flower so 
suggestive of grandmother’s personal- 
ity as this, her favorite; for, like the 
pink, she kept her fragrance long. 
Having lived sweetly and wholesomely 
in her youth and prime, now, at sev- 
enty, she was hale and sweet, with none 
of the unpleasantness of decay, seen in 
some waning flowers and women. She 
did not belong to the class of placid, 
insipid old ladies, either, but her indi- 
viduality was as marked and spicy as 
ever it had been ; and with her patience 
and cheer and ready sympathy she was, 
as Roxy often told her, the very pink 
of grandmothers. 

However, as Roxy approached nearer 
and nearer the house, the folly of try- 
[ 41 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


ing to keep the flowers became more and 
more evident. She couldn’t smuggle 
them up to her room under her apron, 
for Aunt Ann Sarah’s eyes were verit- 
able X rays, and she could see through 
a board fence. The sweet, innocent 
things would bring more trouble than 
pleasure. 

Fearing that some one of the Thom- 
sons might see them if she left the 
flowers in the road, Roxy climbed over 
the walk into a pasture not far from 
the Dillingham house, to dispose of 
them. 

It was a regular New England pas- 
ture, too sterile to produce much beside 
sweet fern and huckleberry bushes, but 
with the distinctive charm of Mother 
Nature in her wild and wilful mood. 
The soil was rocky, and there was one 
large boulder in the middle of the 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


pasture, where Roxy used to play at 
housekeeping, and which she always 
called “ her rock.” It had wide crev- 
ices in it, which made fine hiding-places, 
but she could not find it in her heart to 
hide the pinks there. So she put them 
in an old tomato can, that the last 
shower had half filled with water, con- 
cealing it with huckleberry bushes at the 
foot of the rock, and intending to enjoy 
them on surreptitious trips to the pas- 
ture. One pink, however, she put in 
her pocket for grandmother. 

Reaching the house, Roxy found 
her aunt in the doorway waiting for 
her. 

“What kept you so long?” she de- 
manded, holding out her hand for the 
mail. 

“I — I went to my rock in the pas- 
ture,” Roxy answered. 

[ 43 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“Yes, I saw you go there, but that 
wouldn’t account for all the time 
you Ve been gone. Did n’t you stop 
anywhere else on the way home? ” 

“ No,” answered Roxy; but, being a 
truthful child, she added, “ not five 
minutes.” 

Aunt Ann Sarah turned her X-ray 
glance upon her, reading, as it seemed, 
the whole truth upon her wicked heart, 
for immediately she declared: 

“ You have been to the Thomsons, 
Roxy Dillingham. You can’t cheat 
me! ” 

The color surged up into Roxy’s 
face, and she unwisely tried to slip past 
her aunt’s portly figure into the hall. 
But Aunt Ann Sarah was not to be 
trified with like that. Catching the 
culprit by one arm, she administered a 
resounding slap on one cheek, as a 
[ 44 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


hint that she had better restrain any 
impulse to escape, and forced from her 
unwilling lips a full confession. 

‘‘ Mr. Denny asked me to leave a 
letter there for Miss Eliza. It was an 
important letter, for it had a special 
delivery stamp, and I could n’t refuse 
to do a little thing like that,” Roxy 
cried, blazing with resentment at the 
indignity she had suffered. 

“Couldn’t you? Well, I guess be- 
fore I ’m through with you, you will 
wish you had had a little more grit,” 
cried the aunt, still more incensed by 
what she considered Roxy’s assumption 
of superiority. “ I forbade you ever 
to go to the Thomsons’ house, or to 
talk with them. You have disobeyed 
me, and now — ” 

“ Roxy, Roxy,” cried grandmother’s 
voice from the top of the staircase, 
[ 45 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“come up here! Ann Sarah, what is 
the matter? What has Roxy done?” 

“ Done?” shrieked Ann Sarah. “She 
has been to the Thomsons, doin’ favors 
for ’Liza Thomson, — the child I’ve 
took care of for years an’ years! Oh, 
she ’s a regular viper that I ’ve warmed 
in my bosom. And now you mind this. 
Grandma, she isn’t to set foot off this 
place for a week, as a punishment.” 

Grandmother and the viperous one, 
who had flown up the stairs at the first 
chance of escape, and had been hang- 
ing over the baluster to listen to this 
tirade, went into their own room. 

“ How could I have refused to take 
the letter to Miss Eliza, when Mr. 
Denny knew I should pass right by 
the house? And when Mrs. Thomson 
offered me those lovely pinks, how 
could I refuse them without being rude 
[ 46 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


and disagreeable?” asked Roxy, hav- 
ing given an account of herself. 

“You might have said that you had 
been told to come right home and you 
couldn’t wait for the flowers to be 
picked,” grandmother suggested; but 
she had no sympathy with her daughter- 
in-law in her continuous quarrelling, 
and was probably of the opinion that 
Roxy’s punishment was altogether out 
of proportion to her offence, for she 
said no more on that head. Sniffing 
delightedly at the pink, she began to 
ask questions about the Thomsons’ 
home day at Hazeltown, of which 
Roxy had spoken in describing her 
experience there. 

“ I think those home day reunions 
are beautiful — beautiful,” she said. 
“ When we lived at the old homestead 
these celebrations had not begun, but 
[ 47 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


if I were there now, as sole mistress, 
you know — ’’ 

“ You mean without Aunt Ann 
Sarah,” Roxy put in. 

“ Well — er — yes,” grandmother ad- 
mitted, “ I should have a family reunion 
every year.” 

“ But there are so few Dillinghams,” 
Roxy objected. “ I have only three 
cousins, and they are ’way off in Cali- 
fornia. They could n’t come to your 
reunion.” 

“ You have only three own cousins, 
but you have plenty of more distant 
ones. There ’s Mr. Caleb Dillingham’s 
family, you know, in Bloomfield.” 

‘‘ Hm-m-m, yes, I know,” said Roxy. 
“ I remember how I looked forward to 
meeting my little cousins when I went 
there, and I never shall forget my sen- 
sations when they came filing into the 
[ 48 ] 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


room to see me. First, Cousin Richard, 
a weazened, baldheaded old man, who 
shook my hand without a word and 
went out again; then Cousin Louisa, 
who hobbled in with a cane, and scolded 
me so for never having come there be- 
fore that I never would go there again; 
and lastly. Cousin Betty, the oldest, 
who was so deaf that all the time I 
was there I couldn’t make her under- 
stand who I was, and so she didn’t 
know I was a cousin at all.” 

Grandmother laughed. “ It was 
rather hard luck, but I ’m sure no one 
ever told you that they were ‘ little 
cousins.’ ” 

‘‘ No, but you naturally expect your 
cousins to be about your own age. If 
they are n’t, they ought to be aunts or 
great uncles or something. I think a 
family is very helter-skelter when one 
4 [ 49 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


cousin is ten years old and another is 
fifty,” Roxy resentfully remarked. 

“ Well, if all the Dillinghams came 
together I ’m sure there would be some 
of your age. A family of our name 
came to Hazeltown once, some time be- 
fore we moved away, to hunt up their 
ancestors. I reckon from what they 
said they were sort of sixteenth cousins 
of ours. They were real pleasant folks, 
and they had two children with them, 
— little girls about your age.” 

“ I was n’t born then,” cried Roxy, 
in the same aggrieved tone. “ So by 
now they must be grown women.” 

“ So they are,” grandmother as- 
sented. ‘‘ I declare you do seem to 
have bad luck with your cousins. Still, 
as I said before, if they were all to- 
gether you would find some as young 
and frisky as yourself. A good many 
[ 50 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Dillinghams settled in New York State, 
and some at the West, some in Rhode 
Island, and, in fact in all the New 
England states. I should hope to have 
a hundred to two hundred people sit 
down to dinner.” 

“ Dear me, I guess you would have 
to be ‘ sole mistress,’ for if Aunt Ann 
Sarah was half mistress she wouldn’t 
have one person sit down to dinner. 
But I think it would be great.” 

Then,” grandmother went on, 
there would be speeches. We should 
remember those of our name whg had 
served in the wars, — the Indian wars 
and the War of the Revolution and the 
Civil War.” 

I suppose a good many of them 
were wonderfully brave. People’s an- 
cestors always are,” Roxy reflectively 
observed. 


[ 51 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“ Well, some of ours really were,” 
grandmother insisted. “ Not that their 
deeds are recorded, as far as I know, 
in history. One of ’em I knew myself. 
He was a sergeant in the Civil War.” 

‘‘ Only a sergeant,” interrupted Roxy ; 
“ that is n’t one of the boss officers at 
all. In these days when everybody has 
colonels and generals for ancestors I 
don’t feel satisfied with a sergeant. I 
do hope we can hunt up some high- 
cockalorum officer among our ancestors 
before those speeches are made. But, 
Grandmother, would n’t it take a lot of 
money to have a reunion like that? ” 
This practical question brought them 
both down to realities with a bump. 
Instead of living in that ancestral man- 
sion they were practically imprisoned in 
this 20 X 16 room under the eaves, with 
one small window through which they 
[52] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


could look on the outside world. In- 
stead of sending out invitations to a 
hundred or two hundred people, they 
dared not invite a single friend to a 
cup of tea. Instead of making ac- 
quaintance with cousins from the north, 
the south, the east, and the west, they 
saw no one but each other from morn- 
ing till night, week after week. 

The sparkle died out of their eyes, 
the smile from their lips. Grandmother 
took up her knitting and Roxy got 
out her school-books, as she always did 
when life looked grim and. the future 
seemed to hold no hope save in her 
own exertions. 


[ 53 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


CHAPTER FOUR 

I T grew warmer and warmer in the 
little room under the eaves where 
grandmother and Roxy sat. There 
was nothing to be heard but the little 
sounds made by Roxy’s lips, as she 
conned her lesson under her breath, and 
the click of grandmother’s knitting- 
needles. Then, as the crunch of wheels 
on the gravel outside broke upon their 
ears, the books and the knitting were 
thrown aside. 

“ It ’s Mrs. Hadley’s carriage,” Roxy 
announced. “ She has come to call, and 
she always asks for you. There, Aunt 
Ann Sarah is letting her in. Say, 
Grandmother, if you like, I ’ll go right 
down to the parlor and say, ‘ Grand- 
mother is feeling very well to-day, Mrs. 
[ 54 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Hadley, and would enjoy seeing you. 
Won’t you come up to her room? ’ 
Aunt Ann Sarah would be as mad as 
a hornet, but she couldn’t tell her not 
to come. Oh, Grandmother, do let 
me!” 

For a moment the poor old lady 
seemed on the point of yielding. It 
would be such a pleasant break in the 
monotony of the long day, and Roxy 
would do the thing prettily, having the 
pleasant Dillingham manner. But in- 
stantly the wisdom of the aged, who 
will sacrifice much for peace in the 
household, forbade. 

‘‘ Mebbe Ann Sarah will ask me to 
come down,” she said; but the moments 
passed and there was no summons. 
Presently there was the rustle of skirts 
in the hall and then the sound of voices 
on the doorstep, Mrs. Dillingham’s voice 
[ 55 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


rising to grandmother’s window with 
especial distinctness: 

“ Why, yes, I ’ve been thinkin’ of 
goin’ over to the camp meetin’ and 
I ’d like to join your party first rate. 
Timothy an’ I will drive in the carryall. 
What is it, take grandma an’ Roxy? 
Oh, ’t would n’t do. Grandma is too 
feeble to ride so fur, an’ it’s not safe 
for her to be in such a crowd on ac- 
count of her spells; an’ Roxy is a 
pickle, I can tell you.” 

Mrs. Hadley’s response, made in a 
voice too husky to carry far, was, per- 
haps, of a consolatory nature, for the 
other said: 

‘‘ Yes, ’t is hard. I always tell girls 
who come to me for advice to stay on- 
married till kingdom come rather than 
marry a man with encumbrances.” 

Grandmother and Roxy looked at 
[ 56 ] 


Old’Home Day at Hazeltown 


each other, the old woman with lips 
tight pressed and the red spots re- 
appearing on the child’s round cheeks. 
They were proud-spirited, and to figure 
in the public eye as “ encumbrances ” 
distressed them as much as to lose the 
proposed outing. They moved nearer 
to each other, the old woman and the 
child, in the fellowship of their sorrow, 
Roxy grieving that the last years of 
her grandmother’s life should be made 
miserable, and the grandmother think- 
ing of the future of Roxy, when she 
herself could no longer protect or com- 
fort her. Soon, however, their native 
cheerfulness reasserted itself. They 
left the prickly thought, as the graz- 
ing animal turns from the nettle. 

“ I did n’t know there was camp 
meetin’ now,” said grandmother. 
“ Where is it? ” 


[ 57 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“ Over to Sandwich, and everybody 
is going.” 

“Sandwich! My, that’s fifteen 
miles off!” the old lady exclaimed. 
“ It ’s an awful pretty ride, and I like 
riding an’ crowds. There ’ll be lots of 
folks there from Hazeltown.” 

“I don’t know; it’s home week at 
Hazeltown. Anyhow, Aunt Ann 
Sarah ’s going to be gone all day, 
that ’s something. She can’t get back 
much before night. We ’ll go down 
and sit in the holy kitchen, and we 
can have some soda biscuit made your 
way.” 

“ So we will,” said grandmother, 
brightening. “We ’ll have a good 
time at home. Perhaps some of the 
neighbors will drop in. I wonder if 
Ann Sarah’s got anything to offer 
people? I always used to make cur- 
[ 58 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


rant wine and quince cordial to pass 
round with cake. I like something to 
pass round.” 

Hush,” warned Roxy, “ she ’s com- 
ing up.” 

In fact she immediately appeared, 
puffing like a steam engine with the 
exertion of dragging her two hundred 
and fifty pounds uj) the stairs. 

‘‘ Wal,” she said, sitting down, “ Tim- 
othy an’ I are goin’ to camp meetin’ 
to-morrow. I came up to tell you now, 
before I forget it, that there won’t 
be any need of your daubin’ up the 
kitchen. Grandma, makin’ messes. I ’m 
going to bake you some soda biscuits 
to-day; there’ll be chowder to warm 
up, an’ you can have that pie in the 
pantry that ’s been cut.” 

“ Oh, grandmother is too feeble to 
do anything,” said Roxy, pinching 
[ 59 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


grandmother’s hand.; but her innocent 
air didn’t deceive Aunt Ann Sarah. 

“Well, you aren’t too feeble to do 
anything. Grandma, I warn you right 
now that if she does any mischief while 
I ’m gone, I ’ll whip her when I come 
home.” 

With this as her last word Mrs. Dil- 
lingham, Junior, departed. 

“Well, don’t that beat all!” ex- 
claimed grandmother, as her ponder- 
ous footsteps died away. “ Seem ’s if, 
with those sharp eyes o’ hers, she just 
pierced down to the part o’ my brain 
that was occupied with soda biscuit 
intentions.” 

As if absolutely worn out with the 
continual frustration of her hopes and 
purposes, grandmother walked over to 
the bed, and, lying down, soon fell 
asleep. She had a long, comfortable 
[ 60 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


nap, but on waking found Roxy — 
usually as restless as a bit of quick- 
silver — still sitting on the footstool. 
The woe-begone expression, however, 
which her face had worn on the exit 
of her aunt had disappeared, and she 
was now beaming. 

“ Oh,” she cried, the moment she 
saw that her grandmother was awake, 
“I’ve made such a splendid plan! 
We’ll go to Hazeltown to-morrow. 
It ’s home- week, you know, at Hazel- 
town.” 

“ I should think you would rather go 
to St. Louis; we have been so many 
times to Hazeltown.” 

“Oh, pshaw! I wasn’t thinking of 
going in that way. We are going on 
our legs this time, and not have to make 
believe a bit. We ’ll have an Old-Home 
Day.” 


[ 61 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“ Why, Roxy Dillingham,” gasped 
the old lady, “ we can’t.” 

“Why not?” Roxy demanded, ex- 
citedly. “ They ’ll be gone. There ’ll 
be nobody to stop us. What ’s to 
hinder us? ” 

“ Somebody ’ll see us in the cars — 
there ’ll be lots of folks that know our 
family going to Sandwich — and tell 
your Aunt Ann Sarah. She would 
make Timothy hitch right up and come 
after us.” 

“ I was n’t thinking of going in the 
cars,” said Roxy. “ I was planning to 
go with the baker. His cart comes by 
here early in the morning, and since 
that time I ran after him with the 
basket of cake that dropped off his 
wagon, he has often asked me to take 
a ride. We ’ll get out at the crossroads 
at Hazeltown, and, ‘ feeble ’ as you are, 
[ 62 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Grandmother Dillingham, I guess you 
can manage to crawl the rest of the 
way to the old place. When we get 
there we ’ll ask for a glass of water, 
and tell that Mrs. Cummings, that lives 
in it now, how the house was your old 
home, and that I was born in it; and 
she will ask us to come in and look 
about. It would be no more than 
polite, and anybody that is anybody 
would be nice to a dear, sweet, beauti- 
ful old lady like you,” — here Roxy 
could not refrain from skipping across 
the room and giving her an ecstatic 
hug, — “ to say nothing of a middling 
good sort of a girl like me. Then we 
will eat our luncheon in that lovely pine 
grove near the barn, and as we go to 
the station to take the cars home — 
for it won’t matter who sees us then 
— we ’ll stop at the Janeways, and they 
[ 63 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


can see for themselves if you are too 
feeble to see anybody, or go anywhere, 
and if you are queer in your mind. 
And I shall see how Mrs. Janeway 
looks without her bird of paradise, and 
you can give your own message to 
grandmother Jane way. And we can 
find out if the twins are two girls, 
or two boys, or one girl and one 
boy.” 

“ Well, I declare,” ejaculated grand- 
mother. “If you don’t beat everybody 
for planning! But then, I was just 
that way myself,” she added, looking 
reflectively at Boxy, who, in truth, was 
as nearly what she herself had been at 
ten years as one human being is ever 
like another. Yes, she had just the 
same large lustrous eyes, with the same 
sparkle when pleased, and from which 
she gave one those long magnetic looks, 
[ 61 ] 



Reading consent in the other’s eyes she began to dance daintih',” Page 65. 



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Old’IIoirw Day at Hazeltown 


the same tumbled black curls, the same 
delight in life, the same warm heart, 
and hands that went out to all her kind, 
so willing to serve, so prompt to carry 
out the kind thoughts of the quick brain, 
the same pleasant manner and gift of 
pleasing. 

“So we ’ll go, won’t we. Grand- 
mother? ” said Roxy, and, reading con- 
sent in the other’s eyes, she began to 
dance daintily on her tiptoes about the 
old lady, her skirts held out airily, and 
all her curls a- jostle. 

“ To see Aunt Ann Sarah’s face when 
she knows we have been to the Jane- 
ways will be worth the hardest whip- 
ping she could give me,” she laughed. 

“ Well, she sha'rCt whip you, — not 
while I live,” said grandmother, with 
spirit. “If we go, ’t will be nobody’s 
fault but mine, and go we will. Walk 
5 [ 65 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


from the crossroads to the house ! Pooh ! 
I can walk twice as far, and enjoy it, 
too.” 

After this the hot afternoon passed 
quickly in grandmother’s room. Down- 
stairs Aunt Ann Sarah noisily scrubbed 
and rubbed, growing crosser and crosser, 
according to her wont, as her house 
grew cleaner and cleaner. 

At last the sun, a crimson disk, set 
in a quiet sky. With a soft rosy color 
it tinged the meadows that stretched to 
the horizon, and glimmered warm on 
the edges of the cedars along the stone 
wall. Robins were chirping. A bird 
with a sweeter strain far away seemed 
to sing from the mere joy of living. 
There was a fragrance of wild grapes 
in the air, and a joyous young voice 
chanted from an upper window. 

“ It ’s going to be fine to-morrow. 

[ 66 ] 


Old’Home Day at Hazeltown 


It ’s going to be a beautiful, beautiful 
day.’’ 

“ I ’ve half a mind not to go to 
camp meeting,” said Aunt Ann Sarah 
to her spouse as he came up with a 
milk pail in each hand. “ How do I 
know what that young one will be up 
to? — turning the house topsy-turvy as 
likely as not. And your mother may 
have one of her spells.” 

“ Oh, Roxy won’t do any harm,” 
blessed Uncle Timothy assured her. 
“ She is a pretty good gal, Roxy is. 
Not many of ’em at her age would be 
so good to her old grandma, always 
lookin’ out for her, jest like an old hen 
for her chicken.” 

“ Hm-m-m! ” said Aunt Ann Sarah. 

“ An’ mother ’ll be all right. She 
don’t seem to me to be so very feeble, 
an’ I don’t look for any spell. Jes’ 
[ 67 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


you listen, Ann Sarah, an’ hear her 
sing.” 

For a second they stood silent, and 
grandmother’s voice, clear and strong, 
floated down to them. She was sing- 
ing “ Home, Sweet Home.” 

“ Wal,” said Aunt Ann Sarah, with 
a frown, “ I ’ve noticed that your 
mother always sings that when she is 
contrary an’ plottin’ to do somethin’ 
she knows I won’t like.” 


[ 68 ] 


Old-Home JDay at Hazeltown 


CHAPTER FIVE 

T he next day dawned with the 
pomp and beauty of a June 
sunrise. A soft breeze blew 
in through grandmother’s window, fan- 
ning the valances on her four-post bed- 
stead, and promising to temper the heat 
of the sun. Roxy’s eyelids rose over 
sparkling eyes, and grandmother awoke 
with the pleasant consciousness that she 
was to be a person once more, that she 
was to take a part in the world’s ac- 
tivities that day, that she was to escape 
from the shelf where her daughter-in- 
law had placed her. 

Despite her misgivings. Aunt Ann 
Sarah set out for Sandwich at the 
specified time, leaving Roxy, who had 
been bidden to follow her to the car- 
[ 69 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


riage tO; receive her parting instructions, 
wild with delight and anticipation. The 
day was hers, — hers and grandmother’s. 
It must be made the most of and en- 
joyed to the full, every blessed minute, 
because they would never have a second 
opportunity for such an escapade. But 
a whole day is enough for a child. 

In fifteen minutes after the depar- 
ture of the carryall the runaways were 
waiting on the doorstep for the baker. 
Grandmother wore her best dress, — a 
rusty black one, — and a bonnet so old- 
fashioned as to make one wonder where, 
in these days, when a knowledge of the 
fashions in millinery as in all matters of 
dress is carried by periodicals and papers 
to the remotest corners of the country, 
it could ever have been bought. It had 
a bunch of purple flowers on one side, 
a dangling veil on the other, and the 
[TO] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


survival of what used to be a cape, in 
the back. Grandmother, who was 
posted in the fashions and had rather 
a gay taste, abominated this bonnet, 
but her beautiful old face bore even 
this test. She carried a shawl over her 
arm in case the wind should change. 
A checked gingham dress was Roxy’s 
best, but, as it had been washed and 
ironed by Ann Sarah’s hand, it was 
clean and stiff. It had been made in 
the style Ann Sarah’s dresses were 
made when she was Roxy’s age, and 
was entirely devoid of trimming; but 
her taste for the ornamental had found 
ample gratification in a beautiful garnet 
ring which had belonged to her mother. 
Of course it was too large for her 
finger, even her middle finger, but this 
was obviated by a string, which was tied 
to it and then fastened to another string 
[^ 1 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


around her wrist. She carried a basket 
with various articles afterwards of use, 
one of which was a purse containing 
thirty cents. 

“ Fond as I am of travelling,” 
grandmother was saying, “ it never 
happened so I could go much. I never 
went anywhere, except to New York 
once, to Boston a few times, and on 
little no^account trips to the towns near 
home. I did n’t go on a wedding tour. 
They weren’t so common when I was 
young but I ’d set my heart on it, and 
your grandfather an’ I had planned to 
go to Vermont. But his mother was 
taken sick, and we were married in a 
hurry; an’ I went right to her house 
and took care of her. We meant to 
go later, but I ’ll tell you one thing. 
Boxy, there ’s no time to take a v^ed- 
din’ tour when you ’ve a tribe of chil- 
[ 72 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


dren to look after; and then it does n’t 
come in good with ploughing an’ har- 
rowing an’ forking manure, and seeding 
and weeding an’ harvesting. A man 
is n’t attuned to it under those circum- 
stances. Anyhow, we never got off. 
I never admitted it before to a living 
soul, but ’twas a real disappointment 
to me.” 

“ Well, I think grandfather ought 
to have taken you,” declared grand- 
mother’s champion; ‘‘but never mind, 
I ’m going to take you right now.” 

Grandmother laughed. “ I don’t 
know as I should have enjoyed the 
one with your grandfather as much as 
this one. ’T would n’t have been such 
a novelty to get out anyhow. A nice, 
bright, little grandchild is first-rate to 
go with on a bridal tour.” 

“ It ’s coming! It ’s coming! ” Roxy 
[ 73 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


announced, suddenly jumping about in 
a wild manner. “ Listen! ” 

Through the crystal clear morning 
air the tinkle of bells was audible, and 
presently the yellow-wheeled cart of 
the Hazeltown baker was in sight. 

As Aunt Ann Sarah did not patron- 
ize him, of course he did not stop at 
the Dillingham house, so Roxy ran 
into the middle of the road, and there 
was a terrible moment of suspense be- 
fore he said in answer to her eager 
question : 

“You und die grandmutter vant to 
go ride mit me to Hazeltown? Gut! ” 
Accomplishing, with the baker’s help, 
the feat of climbing up to the high seat, 
grandmother, all smiles and happiness, 
held the reins while he lent his hand to 
Roxy. In a second he too climbed in, 
— he was fat, a German baker is al- 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


ways fat, — and all three seemed to run 
together and fit the seat pretty tight. 
Then, tinkle, tinkle, went the bells, and 
they were off. 

It was a tremendous moment. 
Roxy looked back with a triumphant 
glance, a we Ve-got-ahead-of-you-for- 
once-marm expression, at a wrapper of 
Aunt Ann Sarah’s that was whirling 
about on the clothes-line, as if danc- 
ing in wrath; but grandmother’s face 
was set eagerly toward Hazeltown. 

The morning had a delicate, fairy 
charm. The air was still fresh, the 
roadsides, with their tangles of wild 
grape and wild rose, were still dewy. 
Decidedly it was a morning for an 
adventure or for a belated bridal tour, 
— a day in which one could not feel 
old or unhappy. 

For a few moments the baker whis- 
[ 75 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


tied, and Roxy hummed beneath her 
breath, while grandmother smiled and 
smiled; but with grandmother’s geni- 
ality, the good feeling of the baker, 
and the jocund spirit of the child, the 
barrier of reserve gave way, and they 
began to enjoy each other as well as 
themselves. Having been to Sandwich, 
the baker’s conversation was most inter- 
esting, the old lady had a fund of an- 
ecdote stored up from the experience 
of seventy years to draw upon, Roxy 
could joke with the best of them, and 
the sorrel horse, touched up now and 
then with the whip, flew along the 
lovely roads, merrily shaking his bells. 

The baker, in fact, was pleased with 
his company, and, reaching a shady 
spot, he suddenly stopped, and pro- 
posed partaking of some of the ice- 
cream he had in the back of his cart. 

[ 76 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“ But we have only thirty cents,” 
said Roxy, “ and we have to save 
ten for our tickets back to East 
Bowditch.” 

‘‘ I doan vant moneys. I gif you ice- 
gream,” he said, with a wave of his 
pudgy red hand. “Vimmens und leedle 
girls like ice-gream, eh? But vot shall 
ve do? I haf carry no spoon.” 

“But I carry spoons,” said Roxy, 
opening her basket. 

“Well, I never!” said grandmother. 

So they all rose in one piece from the 
seat, and the part that was the baker 
came off and jumped out. As he was 
getting out the ice-cream at the back 
of the cart Roxy nudged grandmother 
and said: 

“ Oh, my, is n’t this lovely ! Are n’t 
we having a nice bridal tour? ” 

“ Fine,” grandmother answered, with 
[ 77 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


sparkling eyes. I don’t know as I 
ever enjoyed myself so much.” 

Well it only needed this to make it 
perfect. Look! here he comes with 
such a lot of ice-cream,” Roxy joy- 
fully exclaimed. 

“ I don’t know as we ought to take 
it,” said grandmother, looking from the 
heaping plate to the munificent baker; 
but, as Roxy had already set spoon to 
her share, further expostulation seemed 
foolish. 

The baker employed the wait in ex- 
amining the harness and fiapping the 
flies on the horse, for he disdained ice- 
cream himself, as a “ sugary noding, 
good only for vimmens und leedle 
girls; ” but, to give room for the play 
of their arms while they regaled them- 
selves, he considerately stayed out of 
the wagon. 


[ 78 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


This delightful impromptu was over 
all too soon. The spoons were wiped 
on some leaves and put away in the 
basket as ‘‘ our kind of clean,” and they 
were off again. 

On reaching the crossroads, the baker 
amiably offered to take them to their 
destination, but their sense of obliga- 
tion was too great to allow this. So 
he set them down by a great elm tree, 
the happiest pair in Christendom. 

“ Now,” said Roxy, “ our adventures 
are to begin; for somehow I am con- 
vinced, Grandmother, that this is the 
day of our lives.” 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


CHAPTER SIX 

T he runaways trudged joy- 
fully along a road beautifully 
shaded, — a veritable arcade 
of elms. After their somewhat cramped 
quarters in the baker’s cart, it was an 
undeniable relief to stretch their limbs; 
and the ice-cream, or the recollection 
of it, kept them cool. 

Hazeltown was a finer place than 
East Bowditch, which was an ugly 
manufacturing town, and “the home- 
stead” was far, far prettier than the 
farm that Ann Sarah had bought with 
grandmother’s money. The house was 
very old-fashioned, and of ample size, 
each room being large enough to make 
two or three of the size of grandmother’s 
present stuffy little bedchamber. There 
[ 80 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


were two hoary cherry-trees in front of 
it and a flagged walk, with a strip cut 
in the grass for flowers, on either side 
of the porch, which had seats, and was 
covered with honeysuckle. On the south 
side there were two doors. One had a 
trellised doorway and a platform on 
which grandmother used to keep plants, 
while the kitchen doorway was gener- 
ally ornamented by shining tin pans. 
In her day the house had been noted 
for its hospitality, and the doors, the 
blinds, and the windows in summer 
were generally open. There was al- 
ways a stir about it. Now it wore a 
quiet and subdued air. There was no 
one about, and not so much as the bark- 
ing of a dog disturbed its sombre still- 
ness. In fact, as the home-farers soon 
perceived, it was closed, vacant. The 
Cummingses must have moved away. 

6 [ 81 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


While for the second time Roxy re- 
connoitred, grandmother sat down on 
the front steps, trying not to feel dis- 
appointed that she could not go inside; 
for she had taken her granddaughter’s 
view of the probable hospitality of Mrs. 
Cummings. 

“ Anyhow, I feel more at home on 
this doorstep than I ever have in that 
East Bowditch house. I always did 
think this spot was a corner of para- 
dise, and so ’tis.” She drew a long 
sigh as she looked at the familiar land- 
scape. “ It ’s beautiful, beautiful, but 
I suppose I shall never again see the 
inside of the house.” 

Just at that moment the door creaked 
upon its hinges, and a voice behind her 
cried : 

“ Do come right in. I had a feeling 
in my bones that I should have com- 
[ 82 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


pany to dinner, an’ so I got cooked 
up. Come in. Your gran’daughter 
has kind of queer manners, and came 
in through the window.” 

Of course it was Roxy’s voice, and 
Roxy’s glowing face peered out upon 
her from the dark hall. 

“ There was a window in the shed 
that was n’t nailed,” she explained, 
gaily. “ Come on, Grandmother. It ’s 
nicer in the kitchen ’cause there are no 
blinds to the windows.” 

The old lady, chuckling with pleas- 
ure and pride in her enterprising de- 
scendant, allowed herself to be led 
through the dark hall, and presently 
found herself in her old kitchen. Some 
dilapidated furniture had been left 
there by the last occupants, — an old 
sofa with a broken leg, a table, a rock- 
ing-chair with a rickety back, and the 
[ 83 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


like, — and the runaways made them- 
selves at home. Grandmother sat down 
in the rocker, and Roxy, after pulling 
up the green paper window shade 
opened the kitchen door, giving a view 
that grandmother loved. As she sat 
there, looking at the distant hills cov- 
ered with the plumes of the pines, she 
was very happy in a calm, subdued 
way. 

Roxy’s happiness, however, was not 
of the calm, subdued variety. She 
danced about the kitchen, declaring 
that luck was on their side after all; 
— that to find the house empty, and 
to be able to do as they pleased in it 
without any supercilious Mrs. Cum- 
mings holding the door open for them 
to go out, was something beyond her 
most rose-colored dream. She ran up 
stairs and down, peeping into every 
[ 84 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


corner with just sentiment enough to 
make it interesting and not enough to 
cast any shadow upon her happiness. 
Her footsteps seemed to grandmother, 
perhaps, to be those of another little 
Roxy long, long dead, for on her re- 
appearance she looked at her with a 
start, and then said gently: 

“My little Roxy! My second little 
Roxy! ” 

When the old lady was rested they 
went all over the farm, visiting the 
barn, the orchard, and cider-mill, and 
they even climbed the hill beyond, — 
“ a sightly spot,” on which Roxy’s 
father had always said the house should 
have been built. From this hill could be 
pointed out the farms of grandmother’s 
old friends and neighbors, the Jane way 
house, with its red roof and rambling 
out-buildings, being the most distinct. 

[ 85 ] 


Old’Home Day at Hazeltown 


Still, grandmother was n’t tired. She 
would go a little farther, and yet a 
little farther. But at noontide, when 
the sun was hot and the shadows were 
dark and sharp, they began to be 
hungry, for they had been too excited 
to eat much breakfast, and ice-cream 
is not sustaining. 

Once more in the old kitchen Roxy 
brought the rocker up to the table, 
found a box for her own seat, and 
began to spread out the luncheon, 
which consisted of rather stale soda 
biscuits and two lopsided pieces of 
apple pie, from which the apple had 
been pretty nearly squeezed out. 

“ How I should like to get up a 
whole dinner once more!” said grand- 
mother. “ Yes, indeed, I feel equal to 
it. If things had happened differently 
with your Uncle Timothy — ” 

[ 86 ] 


Old‘Home Day at Hazeltown 


“You mean, if he hadn’t married 
Aunt Ann Sarah,” interpreted the less 
delicate Roxy. 

“ Well, yes, if he had n’t, you know, 
I should be keeping house for him right 
here, and at this hour, dishing up the 
dinner, — just as I was doing the day 
he came in and, standing over by that 
window there, said, sort of drooping 
like, ‘ Mother, Ann Sarah Tibbets is 
going to marry me.’ ” 

“ Oh, Grandmother, why did n’t you 
tell him not to let her?” 

Grandmother chuckled; then, purs- 
ing up her lips, as she did when re- 
sisting an impulse to confide in her 
youthful confederate, she observed 
irrelevantly : 

“Well, my dear, our lunch doesn’t 
seem quite up to the rest of the day’s 
programme, does it? Biscuits ’most 

[sn 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


twenty- four hours old are sort of dry 
eating.” 

For a moment Roxy looked reflec- 
tively out of the window; then she 
jumped up with a delightful idea. 

“ I ’m going over to the Jane ways to 
buy some milk. Yes, Grandmother, do 
let me! They won’t know who I am. 
I shall say that we are picnicking round 
here. Perhaps I shall see Grandmother 
Janeway; and I ’ll see how Mrs. Maria 
looks without her bird of paradise, and 
find out about the twins. Out in the 
shed there ’s an old pitcher, which I 
can wash at the well and carry for the 
milk.” 

“Well, I don’t know,” said grand- 
mother, doubtfully; but as she did not 
forbid the adventure Roxy immediately 
set out upon it. 

The Janeway house was not unlike 

[ 88 ] 



“ As Roxy approached this side door she came upon a family group.” 

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Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


its nearest neighbor, — perhaps not 
quite so large, with one beautiful elm 
instead of the Dillingham cherry-trees. 
Moreover, there was no porch, and 
only one door at the side. As Roxy 
approached this side door, she came 
upon a family group. 

A man in his shirt sleeves had a 
pretty chestnut colt by the bridle, its 
nose deep in a bowl of meal held by 
a flaxen-haired cherub, while on either 
side of him, evidently anxious to take 
his place, was a girl of Roxy’s age, — 
twins, as she saw at a glance, though 
one was dark and the other of a fair 
complexion, like the boy. Never a 
plume showed itself on either the dark 
head or the blond one; and the mother, 
who was sitting in a calico wrapper 
on the steps shelling peas, and un- 
adorned by the conspicuous top piece, 
[ 89 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


so impressive to Roxy, now seemed but 
an ordinary housekeeper and mater 
familias. To complete the picture and 
the hope with which Roxy had set out, 
an old woman stood in the doorway; 
without a doubt she was Grandmother 
Jane way. 

“ Want to buy some milk, eh? ” said 
the man, to whom she preferred her 
request. “ Well, we have n’t any to 
sell, but we ’ll accommodate you with a 
little. Do you live around here? ” 

“ I live in East Bowditch, but I ’m 
on a picnic with my grandmother 
to-day.” 

“Did you hear that, mother?” cried 
Mrs. Maria to the old lady in the 
doorway. “ She is picnicking with her 
grandmother.” 

“What, what? pickling her grand- 
mother? ” exclaimed the old lady, hold- 
[ 90 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


ing her hand to her ear. Plainly, 
Grandmother Janeway was deaf, while 
Grandmother Dillingham was not even 
hard o’ hearing. 

The twins, between spasms of laugh- 
ter, declared that they took a hand at 
that sort of work themselves, and she 
shook her finger at them in playful 
reproof, as if in recollection of some 
especial prank they had played on her, 
while her daughter-in-law repeated, 
“Picnicking! picnicking, moiheY I not 
pickling! ” 

^ “ Well, I never! ” exclaimed old Mrs. 
Janeway. “ How old is your grand- 
mother? Seventy? Why, that is just 
my age! She must be pretty smart.” 

' “ The little girl says she lives at East 
Bowditch,” said Mrs. Maria. 

“ Anywhere near the Dillinghams ? ” 
questioned Grandmother Janeway. 

[ 91 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Roxy answered in the affirmative. 

‘‘ She is one of little Roxy’s mates, I 
reckon,” said the younger lady, looking 
at Roxy, who was pinching herself to 
keep from laughing. “ Too bad, is n’t 
it, about the old lady? She is so feeble, 
an’ liable to spells an’ queer in her mind. 
Not much like your grandmother — 
going on picnics ! ” 

“ Well, she used to live in that house 
down the road, with the cherry-trees in 
front of it,” explained Grandmother 
Janeway. “ We still call it the Dilling- 
ham house, for we thought everything 
of the Dillinghams. They were nice 
neighbors; an’ we never felt quite the 
same toward the Kippses nor the Cum- 
mingses. Dear me! how I should like 
to see Susan Dillingham once more 
before I die!” 

“ ’T would n’t do you a mite of good, 
[ 92 ] 


Old^Home Day at Hazeltown 


mother, because she ain’t right in her 
mind, you know,” her daughter-in-law 
assured her. 

“Wal, I don’t care anything about 
that,” responded the old lady, testily. 
“ I ’d rather see Susan Dillingham 
clear out of her mind than anybody 
else in their sane senses. She ’d have 
more sense an’ more goodness, an’ 
chirk you up more, feeble as she is, 
than Samson himself. An’ jest to 
think when we were ’most like sisters 
for years and years, an’ her family 
an’ mine were ’most like one, now our 
grandchildren would n’t so much as 
know each other if they were face to 
face.” 

“ Well, now, mother, don’t fret about 
that,” said Mrs. Maria, in a tone that 
implied it was often the subject of 
Grandmother Janeway’s discontent. 

[ 93 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“ There are as many good fish in the 
sea as ever were caught, and, as far as 
I ’m a judge, the Dillinghams are n’t 
superior to other folks.” 

“ But, you see, you are n’t a judge. 
You have never seen any of ’em ex- 
cept Timothy’s wife, and she is a Tib- 
bets. I never had any opinion of Ann 
Sarah Tibbets, or any of the Tibbets 
tribe. And you just wait, Maria, till 
you are old as I am, an’ see if you 
don’t long to see somebody now and 
then who was young when you were 
young.” 

Just as Grandmother Janeway had 
mournfully delivered herself of this 
speech, the twins brought Roxy the 
milk; but that warm champion of the 
weak and aged stood still, looking 
sympathetically at her, and loth to 
leave her without the good comfort 
[ 94 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


of knowing that the hours were fast 
bringing her the beloved friend of her 
youth. 

“ Please, if you like,” she said at last, 
“ my grandmother will stop and see you 
on her way home, and she can tell you 
all about Grandmother Dillingham.” 

“Oh, yes, pray come!” cried every- 
one, the twins louder than all the rest. 

Enjoyable as this adventure had been 
to Roxy, it was even better in retrospect 
when she was able to laugh long, im- 
moderately, whole-heartedly, at each in- 
cident she narrated, and grandmother’s 
repeated ejaculation, “ Well, I never! ” 
with its implied admiration and aston- 
ishment, added zest to the affair. 

While her granddaughter had been 
gone, grandmother had made an excit- 
ing discovery. She had discovered that 
the stove, which had been left in its 
[ 95 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


place by the last tenants, was the iden- 
tical one she had sold with the house, 
and upon which she herself had cooked 
many and many a good meal. All her 
love of housewifery and of cookery 
awoke in force. 

“ If there was only a fire in it, I ’d 
warm up these biscuits,” she said, look- 
ing wistfully at the stove. 

“ Let ’s have a fire in it,” Roxy, of 
course, proposed. “ I can get some 
sticks, and I Ve only to hold out my 
hand and matches will drop right into 
it. Luck ’s on our side to-day.” 

“ It does seem so, I declare.” For 
a moment the idea of gratifying the 
longing, the positive ache, within her 
to perform some little culinary opera- 
tion overcame grandmother. 

‘‘ If we could toast those old biscuits, 
it would get some of the Aunt Ann 
[ 96 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Sarah taste out of them,” Roxy urged, 
as she climbed up on a barrel to feel for 
matches along the high mantel-shelf. 

At this moment, however, a wholly 
unexpected event, and one of the un- 
pleasant kind, befell. 

A loud and peremptory rat-a-tap-tap 
on the front door reverberated in a 
truly sinister way through the deserted 
dwelling. 

The sound brought for the first time 
a sense of the illegality of their occu- 
pancy of the house; then came the ter- 
rifying thought that Aunt Ann Sarah 
was upon them. Grandmother was 
panic-stricken, — almost paralyzed; but 
Roxy, after one pang of horror, 
dropped down from the barrel, and 
with much presence of mind, pulled 
down the window-shade and softly 
closed and barred the door. 

[ 97 ] 


7 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


The knocking at the front door 
ceased, but before they breathed freely 
again a veritable cannonade commenced 
on the side door; then the kitchen door 
was assailed, with a vigorous, deter- 
mined fist, and a persistence that seemed 
as if it never would wear out. Then 
came an interval of silence, followed by 
a repetition of the entire programme, 
after which silence fell again. When 
this had lasted some five minutes, Roxy 
crept to the window and cautiously 
peeped from behind the shade. 

“ ’T is n’t anybody. Grandmother; 
that is, it isn’t anybody for us,’' she 
said in a whisper to the old lady, who 
sat, as she had from the beginning, bolt 
upright in her rocker, one trembling 
finger raised as a somewhat unneces- 
sary caution to her trembling fellow- 
fugitive. “ It ’s a man, and he ’s 
[ 98 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


drinking some water at the well. Oh, 
no, he’s not a tramp. He has too 
good-looking clothes on, and he has a 
bag. A pedlar more likely, — a nice- 
looking pedlar. If we lived here we ’d 
buy his wringing machine, or pie lifter, 
or whatever he has, wouldn’t we? He 
seems to admire this place, for he is 
looking all around, and — ” 

She stopped short, suddenly drop- 
ping the shade, her hands to her breast, 
and instantly the knocking began 
again. This time, however, it lasted 
but a moment, then, creeping to one 
of the front rooms, she saw him 
go down the road with a swinging 
stride. 

He has concluded that nobody lives 
here, and gone away,” she said, as she 
came back, jubilant, into the kitchen. 
‘‘And now to lunch! I ’m so hungry 
L0fC.[99] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


that I can eat the dry biscuits, Aunt 
Ann Sarah taste and all.” 

Blessing the “ pedlar ” for saving 
them from the imprudence of building 
a fire, they ate their meagre repast 
with all the relish of healthy, hungry 
stomachs. After it was disposed of, 
Roxy proposed going to the pine 
grove. The cool dusk was grateful in 
the June noontide. The sun could only 
sift here and there through the thick, 
dusky branches, making a glitter upon 
the beautiful gloom of the long quiet 
aisles; and the languid, swaying trees 
dropped fragrance and balm upon 
them. 

Grandmother sat down on the smooth 
carpet of the grove, and Roxy listened 
to family stories called up by these 
familiar scenes from the depths of the 
old lady’s memory. 

[ 100 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


By the middle of the afternoon, how- 
ever, they went back to the house; for, 
though she would not own it, grand- 
mother was tired after her unwonted 
activity. She realized that the sun 
would soon set upon this day-of-days, 
that the time of reckoning was draw- 
ing nigh, when, at all costs, she must 
save Roxy from punishment. She real- 
ized, too, after the beauty and freedom 
of this day, how unendurable would 
seem her life on the shelf, and she sud- 
denly felt old, tired, and helpless. But 
she would own to nothing except that 
she missed her nap. 

Filled with alarm, Roxy propped up 
the three-legged sofa and got grand- 
mother upon it, covering her carefully 
with her shawl, and pressing warm 
kisses on the cheeks from which the 
color had suddenly fled. Then, with 
[ 101 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


backward, anxious, lingering looks, she 
crept out into the sunshine, pulling the 
door after her. 

“ Suppose,” she said, to herself, 
“grandmother should have a spell! 
Suppose she had over-tired herself and 
was going to be sick!” 

But by and by, peeping in through 
the window, she saw that grandmother’s 
eyes were closed, and she looked just 
as she did at home when comfortably 
napping. Then her fears subsided, 
her zest in the day’s adventures re- 
turned in force, and she looked about 
her for some fresh amusement. 


[ 102 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


CHAPTER SEVEN 

R oxy was not the sort of child 
that saves her money in a tin 
savings bank, and the sum in 
her purse over and above the amount 
that must be reserved for tickets to 
East Bowditch was yet unspent. Both 
she and grandmother had a sweet tooth, 
— long since grandmother had lost the 
teeth with which nature had provided 
her, but the dentist, who had made this 
loss good, must have duplicated that 
sweet tooth, — and Roxy thought that, 
if they could keep it so long, some candy 
would sweeten the misery of the next 
day, when they would be in disgrace, 
enduring the wrath of Aunt Ann Sarah. 

Besides, as this was home week at 
Hazeltown, the village would be live- 
[ 103 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Her than common. Now that the day 
was so far spent, it would not matter 
if she were seen and recognized by any 
of the East Bowditch people, for they 
could not notify Aunt Ann Sarah be- 
fore she and her companion were on 
their homeward way. 

As she came out upon Main Street, 
Roxy was satisfied she was turning to 
the best account the hour or so that 
would cover grandmother’s nap, for the 
town wore a most animated and attrac- 
tive aspect, the shops being decorated, 
flags flying, and a band on the common 
discoursing sweet music, playing in 
fact the appropriate melody of “Home, 
Sweet Home.” Moreover, many of 
her beloved fellow-creatures, albeit 
strangers to her, were promenading 
the streets in a festive way, and alto- 
gether her sensations were those of a 
[ 104 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


person attending some social function, 
or, in her own phrase, it was just like 
being at a party. Assuredly, every one 
was in a holiday humor, for every eye 
met hers with answering gaiety and 
friendliness. So light-hearted and 
genial was her mood, that, suddenly 
coming upon ‘‘ the pedlar ” who had 
unconsciously given her such a fright, 
without realizing what she was about 
she had greeted him with a “ we-meet- 
again’' sort of nod, immensely puz- 
zling him, no doubt, as to where and 
when he and this astonishingly urbane 
young person had met. He was stand- 
ing on the tavern steps with his bag in 
his hand, and looked down upon her 
in turn with that ‘‘Well, whose little girl 
are you? I Ve a little girl of my own at 
home ’’ expression, so becoming to any 
man’s face. In fact, every time Roxy 
[ 105 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


turned back he was watching her, until 
at last, a buggy having been brought 
round, he jumped in and drove away, 
his head still turned to look after her. 

Walking on, still with the agreeable 
feeling of being present at some ele- 
gant levee, though partnerless and 
alone, she was suddenly accosted by 
the Janeway twins. They had been 
sent to the milliner’s, they explained, 
for their grandmother’s new cap, which 
she wished to wear when receiving her 
whom the blond twin called the “ sky- 
larking grandma.” 

“ She says,” the brunette twin fur- 
ther explained, “ that she is n’t going 
to look like an old crone, when another 
woman just her age is skipping about 
so lively.” 

“ I suppose,” Roxy put in with an 
inaudible chuckle, “ that she does n’t 
[ 106 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


want to be like that poor, feeble, old 
Mrs. Dillingham, that can’t do any- 
thing, or go anywhere.” 

“ I rather guess not! ” cried her fond 
granddaughters together, in contempt- 
uous tones. 

The blond twin’s name was Joan, 
the brunette twin was called Jane, and 
Roxy gave her own name as Roxana 
White, which, as far as it went, was 
perfectly true. 

The three children stopped for a 
moment to listen to the band, and 
Roxy remarked that “ Home, Sweet 
Home ” was her favorite song. 

‘‘ If you could hear my mother sing 

Juanita, Juanita, ask your soul if we must 
part,’ ” 

said Joan, ‘‘ you would n’t think much 
of ‘ Home, Sweet Home.’ ” 

[ 107 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


‘‘ I have heard it, but of course I 
have n’t heard your mother sing it,” 
said Roxy, thinking that she would 
very much enjoy hearing Mrs. Maria, 
with the bird of paradise on her head, 
warble that sentimental ditty. 

“Well, it’s the words to ‘Home, 
Sweet Home ’ that I particularly like,” 
she persisted. “ They are ever so much 
nicer than those silly love-sick songs. 
And the music and the words together 
make a lump in my throat.” 

^ Be it ever so humble, there ’s no place like 
home,’ ” 

hummed the blond twin, as they walked 
on toward the milliner’s. Then she cyn- 
ically observed: 

“You are more likely to feel that 
way when you are a good ways away 
from home, I ’ve noticed.” 

[ 108 ] 



“Grandmother Janeway’s cap proved to be a dainty affair of white tarlatan.” 

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Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“ Perhaps Roxana’s home is a par- 
ticularly nice one,” suggested Jane. 

“Hm-m! Isn’t that the milliner’s 
shop?” said Roxy, feeling that the 
subject was getting dangerous. 

Grandmother Janeway’s cap proved 
to be a dainty affair of white tarlatan, 
with a ruche in front and two wide 
streamers behind, the correct thing 
being — so the twins affirmed — to 
wear one streamer hanging at the back 
and the other carelessly forward. 

Roxy thought of the bonnet that was 
to call on the cap, and wished she could 
select something more appropriate from 
the milliner’s stock. There was a lovely, 
black lace bonnet trimmed with jet and 
an ornament that Roxy called a “spirt” 
in the front, which she thought would 
be becoming to grandmother. How- 
ever, as the money in her purse, when 
[ 109 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


the price of the tickets to East Bowditch 
was subtracted from it, was insufficient 
to purchase this ravishing affair, it was 
spent in the next shop for confec- 
tionery, according to her first idea. 

Reserving grandmother’s portion, 
she shared the rest with her new ac- 
quaintances, so that none remained to 
sweeten the misery of the next day; 
but in Roxy’s opinion it was better to 
have one’s “ good times ” wholly good, 
and the bad ones equally extreme, than 
to have only “ half-way times.” More- 
over, it was the only ex-neighborly 
thing to do. As they walked along, 
their arms intertwined (Roxy, of 
course, in the middle), the three little 
girls became more and more friendly. 
The twins told Roxy that there was 
no girl in Hazeltown, that they liked 
as much as they liked her, and Roxy 
[ 110 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


would n’t have been Roxy had she not 
been able to return their compliment 
from a cordial heart. 

When, suddenly remembering their 
mother’s command that they should not 
loiter in the village, they left her (fly- 
ing as for dear life, their black-stock- 
inged legs twinkling like the spokes of 
a wheel, and the box bobbing in a way 
greatly to imperil Grandmother Jane- 
way’s new cap), Roxy had little more 
time at her disposal. 

It was now nearly four o’clock, the 
breeze had freshened, blowing through 
the trees in playful gusts, and little 
dancing lights fell on the pavements, 
making it seem gayer than ever. There 
was a good deal of what the country 
people call ‘‘ traffic ” going on, and 
Roxy sat down on a bench on the out- 
side wall of the pretty little common 
[ 111 ] 


Old’Home Day at Hazeltown 


or “ square ” to listen to the band, which 
had begun again her favorite air, and 
to watch the people on the sidewalks 
and the carriage-loads of excursionists 
that made the town so gay. Then the 
town clock, with a loud clamor, struck 
four, — the hour for her return. 

Now, for the first time, she noticed 
that a good many persons had turned 
off Main Street and taken the course 
she was herself to travel. A string of 
vehicles, too, made a cavalcade along 
the elm-lined road which was usually 
so quiet, and the surprising fact grad- 
ually became apparent as she ap- 
proached, that the Dillingham house 
was the centre of interest. There was 
a crowd of people in front of it, bug- 
gies, carryalls, and teams of all sorts 
were hitched to the trees along the 
road; ‘‘ the pedlar ” was sitting on the 
[ 112 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


stone wall, the obliging and liberal 
baker was conversing in broken Eng- 
lish with the clerk of whom she had 
bought her confectionery, and, at the 
other end of the crowd, high above 
everything, waving delightfully in the 
breeze, and with each movement of the 
head it adorned, was the bird of para- 
dise of Mrs. Maria Janeway. The 
blond twin was there, too, but quite 
hidden by the tall persons around her; 
and the brunette twin was on the way, 
having waited for grandma, who had 
been spurred on by the example of the 
old lady, who went on picnics, to make 
one in this gathering. 

Having with some difficulty reached 
Mrs. Janeway, Roxy gasped out: 

“What are these people here for?” 

“ Oh ! the Dillingham house is going 
to be sold,” answered the blond twin, 
8 [ 113 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


who appeared to be greatly excited. 
“ It ’s going to be auctioned off. 
Don’t you see the red flag? ” 

“ Oh, I hope,” cried the dark twin, 
who now came up with grandma, “ I 
do hope somebody will buy it who has 
children. The Kippses didn’t have 
any and the Cummingses didn’t have 
any. Joan and I have never had 
a neighbor since we have lived in 
Hazeltown.” 

‘‘ And they say,” continued Joan, in 
the same injured tone, “ that the select- 
men want to buy it for the poor-farm. 
Isn’t that awful?” 

“ They want to have Susan Dilling- 
ham’s old home for the poor-house,"' 
quavered grandma. 

“ Houses, like people, mother, have 
their ups and downs in the world,” 
said Mrs. Maria, with the up-and- 
[ 114 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


down motion of the head, so admired 
by Roxy. 

“ But this is different; it ’s Susan^s 
house,” wailed the old lady. “ It will 
jest break Susan’s heart when she hears 
of it. I know it will!” 

“ Well, I think these old houses ought 
to be preserved as relics of the past,” 
said Mrs. Maria, still in her elegant 
bird-of-paradise manner, “ and I wish 
there was a chance of this one being 
bought by somebody with good taste, 
who would fix it up with a cupola, 
some bay windows, a pretty veranda, 
and one of those lovely porte cocheres. 
The town oughter buy it for a 
historical museum; but Lor’! instead 
of that, it ’s wanted for a poor- 
farm'' 

“ There is Mr. Josephus Jenkins. 
He is one of the selectmen, and I 
[ 115 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


s’pose he has come to bid on the 
house,” said Joan. 

‘‘ Oh, dear, oh, dear, seem ’s if I must 
stop him,” whimpered grandma; and 
her daughter-in-law exclaimed in her 
calico-wrapper manner: 

“ You oughtn’t to have come, mother. 
You ’re getting all upset, like I said you 
would,” which was true, though the old 
lady paid no attention to her, but kept 
on wailing in the same distracted way. 

“ Oh, I can’t bear to have Susan 
Dillingham’s house for the poor-house! 
I can’t bear it at all 1 ’T will break her 
heart! What will she say when she 
hears they ’ve taken her house for the 
poor-house ! ” 

‘‘ She won’t care; now don’t fret any 
more about that,'' begged Mrs. Maria. 
‘‘ You know she is n’t quite right in her 
mind and she won’t take it in.” 

[ 116 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


‘‘Won’t she, though!” muttered 
Roxy, who was too troubled and ex- 
cited to be very guarded in her speech. 
''Care! I guess she will care! How 
would you like to have your house 
turned into a poor-house? She ’ll feel 
perfectly dreadfully. I know she will, 
and so do I.” 

“Well, I don’t see why yon should 
care,” cried the dark twin, looking at 
her rather curiously. 

But now every one’s attention was 
turned to a big black-whiskered man 
with a red necktie, who got up on the 
platform by the side door (where 
Grandmother Dillingham used to keep 
her plants), as if he considered him- 
self the most important person in the 
assembly, which, in fact, he was, being 
the auctioneer. 

An astonishingly talkative person 

[in] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


he seemed to be, but to his eloquence 
Roxy lent a deaf ear. She put her arm 
around Grandma Janeway, and their 
tears mingled, as the phrase goes; for 
they alone, out of this throng of people, 
felt the pathos of the moment. 

All day the love of this old home- 
stead had grown upon Roxy. A pleas- 
ant, soothing sense of being at home, 
such as she had never felt in the East 
Bowditch house, ruled by Aunt Ann 
Sarah, had been upon her, a sense of 
proprietorship, too; and, forgetful that 
the place had a real and legitimate 
owner, which might mean occupancy 
at any time, with the wondrous hope- 
fulness of childhood she privately 
counted on other days, when by skill 
and luck she and grandmother should 
outwit their guardians and revisit the 
dear old home. And this is why her 
[ 118 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


tears fell, and she said with old lady 
Janeway: ‘‘ Oh, I can’t bear it! I can’t 
bear it at all! ” 

At last the words of the auctioneer 
penetrated to her consciousness: 

Also,” he was saying, some fur- 
niture left by the last tenant, — a 
sofy with a black- walnut frame {solid 
black walnut, I assure you), carved 
handsomely in grapes, acorns, and so 
forth, indicative of the bounteous fer- 
tility of the Dillingham farm (best 
farm in Hackmatack County, as you 
all know) ; a chair, — an old-fashioned 
rocker, — the sort of chair in which 
grandmother rocked mother. Would 
give an air of home and comfort to 
any room, and extremely useful in case 
of sickness. Why, to own this chair 
means health, strength, and — ” 

“ Fully cooked an’ predigested,” 
[ 119 ] 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


screamed out an old farmer. “ You ’d 
think he was advertising one o’ them 
new breakfast foods.” 

The auctioneer, with a withering 
glance, continued: 

“ Two old-fashioned tables, very rare 
and curious — ” 

“ I do think those things should be 
bought by the historical society,” said 
Mrs. Maria Janeway. “ I did n’t know 
the Cummingses had so much nice 
furniture.” 

‘‘ A barrel packed with china, — 
beautiful old family china,” — the 
auctioneer went on. “ An excellent 
opportunity to provide yourself with 
heirlooms, any one of which would 
be a passport into any society.” 

“ Say, Josephus,” said the old farmer, 
nudging the selectman, “the paupers 
ain’t a-tryin’ to git into society, so, if 
[ 120 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


you buy, yer might peddle out them 
heirlooms, an’ give the fam’lies of 
Hazeltown a chance ter rise up in 
what my gals call the sochil scale.” 

‘‘ All these articles — everything, in 
short, now in the house and barn — to 
go with the farm. Now, give me an 
offer. What am I offered for the 
Dillingham farm? ” 

Roxy had been holding up her hand 
after the manner of a child in school, 
wishing to attract the teacher’s atten- 
tion, and the moment she could make 
herself heard she screamed out: 

“ Stop ! Stop ! Please, sir, you 
must n’t auction off grandmother. 
Grandmother does n’t go with the 
sofa, even if the sofa does go with 
the farm. Don’t sell that sofa. Mister, 
till I ’ve got grandmother off of it.” 
To her horror he went directly on, 
[ 121 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


as if she hadn’t spoken, and, before 
she could push her way through the 
crowd, the man that the blond twin 
had pointed out as Mr. Josephus Jen- 
kins, the selectman, had offered a price 
on the farm. 

Then the unexpected occurred. To 
the general consternation “ the pedlar ” 
outbid him. People were visibly ex- 
cited, not only because it had seemed 
a foregone conclusion that the town 
would have the farm, no one else, as 
far as known, wanting it, but be- 
cause he was a stranger, and Hazel- 
town was always a little suspicious of 
strangers. 

But Grandmother Janeway nodded 
approvingly, and the Janeway twins 
jumped up and down with joy, 
screaming : 

“ Oh, mother, that ’s the gentleman 

[ m ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


that took us to ride in his buggy ! 
Oh, mother, that ’s the gentleman that 
took us to ride, and he said he has a 
little girl of his own just our age! Oh, 
mother, I hope he ’ll get it — hope he ’ll 
get it — hope he ’ll get it! ” 

“Hush! hush!” said their mother. 
“ I can’t hear what ’s going on.” 

More bidding was going on. Mr. 
Jenkins offered five hundred dollars 
more than “the pedlar” had offered; 
then “ the pedlar ” outbid him by three 
hundred more; then the selectman bid 
again, and again “ the pedlar ” outbid 
him. One thing was certain, — the 
town would n’t get the Dillingham 
farm for a song. 

Now a diversion occurred^^ for the 
kitchen door was suddenly opened from 
the inside, and then, very slowly, an old 
lady with tumbled white hair, dark eyes, 
[ 123 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


and a delicate flush on her cheeks, came 
into the yard. 

When Roxy had last seen her lying 
on ‘‘the sofy that was to go with the 
house, ’’ grandmother was not really 
asleep. The closed eyes were wet with 
the slow, bitter tears of the aged. She 
was saying to herself that she had al- 
ways hoped to die in this house, and this 
was her last chance; but she couldn’t 
die and leave Roxy — dear, dutiful, 
loyal, loving Roxy — to Ann Sarah. 
No, she must go on living her other- 
wise useless life on the shelf, — a mere 
encumbrance. She, with her fiery en- 
ergy, her capability, her life forces so 
far from spent, a burden on unwilling 
shoulders ! But patience ! — one could 
do anything for a child like Roxy. 
And then she was to see once more 
Joanna Janeway! With this thought 
[ 124 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


she finally fell asleep and dreamed. 
She dreamed of the house-warming the 
people gave her when she first came to 
this farm; and the dream was very 
vivid and real. When, suddenly awak- 
ened by the noise in the yard, she no 
longer realized that she was a runaway, 
that she was no longer a person, that 
she had no real home, and was supposed 
to be feeble and out of her mind, and, 
seeing this gathering of people, she 
went forward with a smile on her face, 
her hands extended as to neighbors and 
friends, — a very beautiful old lady, 
indeed. 

“ Why, bless my soul, it ’s Susan 
Dillingham!” quavered a voice in the 
crowd. “ Oh, Susan, Susan — ” 

And the other old lady, in a fuller, 
cheerier voice, responded : 

“Joanna, why, Joanna!” 

[ 125 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Here and there among the crowd 
were faces turning toward her with the 
smile of old acquaintance; and Roxy, 
freeing herself at last from the press, 
ran to her, taking in a protecting clasp 
one of those outstretched hands. 

But now grandmother’s attention 
was caught by a feature of this scene 
which had no counterpart in her recol- 
lection, for the auction had been going 
steadily on. She looked vaguely at the 
auctioneer, at Mr. Josephus Jenkins, 
and then, with greater and greater in- 
tensity, at “ the pedlar.” 

“ Three thousand and five hundred,” 
Mr. Josephus Jenkins was bidding. 

“ Three thousand six hundred,” said 
“the pedlar,” with his eyes on grand- 
mother. 

“ Three thousand seven , snapped the 
selectman. 


[ 126 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


‘‘ Three thousand eight hundred,” 
said the other. 

“ Three thousand nine hundred,” said 
the selectman, after a moment’s pause. 

“ Four thousand,” cried the pedlar,” 
and Mr. Jenldns, having reached his 
limit, was silent. 

“ Four thousand dollars for the best 
farm in Hackmatack County. Come, 
come, gentlemen, you make me tired! ” 
cried the auctioneer, looking at Mr. Jen- 
kins. “ Why, there is n’t another such 
place in this town, within convenient 
distance to the village, and yet charm- 
ingly retired. Just the place for — er 
— well, an institution of any kind.” 

But the selectman laughed and shook 
his head. He was acting for the town, 
and he knew his business. 

“ Wal, I swan, you ’ve got it, 
stranger,” he said to his rival, ‘‘ but 

[m] 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


you Ve paid all it ’s wuth. Four thou- 
sand dollars is every cent the place is 
wuth.” 

Four thousand dollars for the best 
farm in the county,” repeated the auc- 
tioneer in hot contempt. Is that the 
most I’m offered? Good Lord! I’m 
ashamed to knock it down at that figure. 
I ’m positively ashamed. Well, then, 
going, going — Remember, the best 
farm in the county, gentlemen — beau- 
tiful old homestead — gone 1 Sold at 
four thousand dollars to” — here he 
leaned toward Roxy’s pedlar — “ sold 
at four thousand dollars to — ” 

But “the pedlar” looked straight into 
grandmother’s eyes as he answered: 

“ Edward Dillingham.” 


[ 128 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


CHAPTER EIGHT 

F or a half instant the three — 
the returned son and father 
with grandmother in his arms, 
and Roxy, laughing and crying at once, 
clasping one hand of each — made a 
picture well worth looking at; for who 
does not like to see love satisfied, long- 
nursed hopes fulfilled, and optimism 
justified? Where is a heart that is not 
warmed by a glimpse into other lives 
at a moment so bright and tender? 
Then the strangers — those who had 
never known the Dillingham family, 
yet with sympathetic backward glances 
— went away, while old friends crowded 
round them with warm welcome and 
congratulations, so that the scene was 
very like that of grandmother’s dream. 
9 [ 129 ] 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


But, no doubt conscious that in the first 
few hours of their reunion they were 
happiest alone, these also melted away. 
Grandma Janeway, almost crying for 
joy, and the twins, bobbing up and 
down in their excitement, last of all. 

When all had gone, they sat down 
together on the front porch (where 
grandmother had wondered if she 
should ever again see the inside of the 
house), and Roxy’s father told how, 
not knowing it had passed into the 
hands of strangers, he had that day 
come back to his old home. Finding 
the house closed, he went to the village 
to seek information of his family, and 
learned that his brother Timothy had 
married, and that his mother and child 
had removed to another town. He 
was also informed that the Dillingham 
homestead was to be sold at auction in 
[ 130 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


the course of a few hours, and, deter- 
mined not to lose this chance of own- 
ing it, he stopped on his way to East 
Bowditch to bid it in. 

Then grandmother and Roxy told 
how they had stolen away that morn- 
ing to visit this old place, — to grand- 
mother the dearest spot on earth, — 
how they had been in the house when 
he came, and how his vehement rap- 
ping on the door had frightened them. 

“ And to think we are going to have 
a home, — a real home, after all! ” cried 
Roxy, leaning over her father to give 
an ecstatic squeeze to grandmother’s 
hand; “a real home, where we won’t 
be ‘ saddled ’ on anybody, where we can 
have our friends come in to see us, and 
can go downstairs without being ‘ al- 
ways round.’ ” 

“ Was it really so bad as that? ” her 
[ 131 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


father asked, kissing first the withered 
sweetness of the old face of his mother 
and then the smooth, round cheek of 
the child. 

Roxy began eagerly to describe the 
miseries of the past, but grandmother, 
in her gentle way, interposed: 

‘‘ But, you know, Edward, we had 
each other, and there was never a child 
so dear and loyal and loving as your 
daughter Boxy.’’ 

“ And there never was any one so 
patient and cheerful and sweet and com- 
forting as grandmother,” Boxy cried, 
forgetting the sins of Aunt Ann Sarah 
in the virtues of her fellow sufferer. 

Then, with poignant realization of 
his neglect, the fortune-seeker gave an 
account of his wanderings, in which so 
many times he had believed himself on 
the point of success, only to be defeated 
[ 132 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


by some unforeseen accident, while the 
passing of the years made it harder 
and harder to come home empty- 
handed. At last, in the Klondike, 
fortune had smiled upon Edward Dil- 
lingham, and he hastened home to his 
neglected ones. The explanation did 
not satisfy himself, nor did it ever sat- 
isfy others (except the mother and child 
that loved him) , but, as the years went 
by, it was always said among their 
friends that ever after his return he 
was all a father and son should be. 

While he talked the sun went down 
slowly behind the hills. The air grew 
cool upon the cheek, and, as he 
put his arms around grandmother, he 
said: 

“ Mother, you shall never go back to 
that place again, even for one night. 
Until we can get this house ready for 
[ 133 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


us we will stay at the tavern here. The 
dew is falling, and I propose to drive 
you there now; and, after I have seen 
you comfortably fixed in as good a 
room as the landlord can give us, I ’ll 
come back here for Roxy, and we will 
drive to East Bowditch and get what 
you two will need.” 

So grandmother drove away, quiet 
and happy, her heart full of love and 
happiness, foreseeing her future just 
as she would have it. She saw herself 
— she, poor, “feeble grandmother,” 
grandmother who was “liable to spells,” 
who was “ not quite right in her mind,” 
“ the grandmother of the shelf ” — 
keeping house for her son and grand- 
daughter, and dispensing hospitality in 
the royal way of the Dillinghams. She 
saw herself visiting the sick, cheering 
the afflicted, feeding hungry little boys 
[ 134 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


and girls to her heart’s content. And 
this all came to pass. 

Meantime Roxy, waiting on the 
porch, was filled with joy and exul- 
tation at the termination of the day’s 
adventures. Indeed, she could hardly 
contain herself as she thought of her 
return to East Bowditch, and meeting 
Aunt Ann Sarah with the glorious 
news of her father’s return, of the 
purchase of the Dillingham place in 
Hazeltown, and the assurance that she 
and grandmother were no longer to 
be a burden to anybody — a very dif- 
ferent meeting, to be sure, from the 
one they had both looked forward to 
through all the pleasure of that day of 
days, in which they would be obliged 
to disport themselves with such hateful 
humility. 

Roxy had divined the anger that had 
[ 135 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


leaped into her father’s heart when he 
heard how unwelcome his mother had 
been made to feel, what positive ill 
usage she suffered in what was in real- 
ity her own house, and also his incli- 
nation “ to make it hot for Timothy’s 
wife; ” and she intended to do her part 
to keep this resentment alive. It would 
be a just punishment in Roxy’s opinion 
(as grandmother would not need two 
houses) if the East Bowditch house 
should now be sold over Aunt Ann 
Sarah’s head, and this she hoped would 
be done. 

Oh, how wonderful it was that the 
day should have ended in this lovely, 
story-book way, and that she, who in 
the morning had been practically father- 
less and homeless, should now have both 
father and home! Crossing the road, 
she looked long at the fine old house 
[ 136 ] 


Old-Home JDay at Hazeltown 


in which she expected to be so happy. 
Her heart grew big with gratitude 
and the determination always to do 
her full share to make it all a true 
home should be. 

The night was very beautiful and 
still, the rose flush of sunset had faded 
out of the sky, and a crescent moon 
was rising above the dark firs beyond 
the house. 

Never had the world seemed so beau- 
tiful to her as at that moment. How 
reposefully the little homes that were 
scattered around her rested upon the 
gracious earth, while great trees bent 
caressingly over them, and above them 
the all-enfolding dome of the sky. The 
great truth dawned upon her that this, 
our earth, with its divine beauty, its 
bounteous harvests, its orchards, and 
cornfields, and gardens, is the Great 
[ 137 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


Home in which these lesser homes nest. 
Yes, it is meant for all, and all who 
live upon it belong to one great family 
whose interests are identical. So that 
whenever we hurt another, we not only 
injure ourselves, but injure all, mak- 
ing, as far as that act goes, our Great 
Home unhomelike and discordant. As 
this truth flashed upon Roxy, the course 
of revenge she had planned looked so 
petty and mean, so unsisterly and un- 
kind, that it became forever impossible 
for her. Standing there in the grow- 
ing beauty and stillness of the night, 
she vowed that as she meant to make 
her own especial home all a home should 
be for her father and grandmother, so 
would she faithfully do her part to 
make this greater home a place of love 
and peace for all whose life touched 
hers in ever so slight degree. 

[ 138 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


CHAPTER NINE 

I T was seven o’clock by the time 
Uncle Timothy and Aunt Ann 
Sarah drove into the yard after 
their day’s junketing, the lady getting 
out of the carryall at the house-door, 
while her lord and master drove on to 
the barn to put up the horse and to do 
his evening chores. 

The day, as far as Mrs. Dillingham 
was concerned, was not much of a suc- 
cess. It had been hot, and she had 
suffered with a violent headache. 

Soon after they set out that morning 
Uncle Timothy had said: 

‘‘ What ’s a-troublin’ you, Ann Sarah? 
You don’t ’pear to be enjoyin’ yerself 
much.” 


[ 139 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


“ I forgot to lock up the parlor cup- 
board,” was the answer, “ an’ by this 
time I reckon Roxy is rummagin’ in it 
for all she ’s worth.” 

“ Did you ever catch her rummagin’ 
in your things? ” 

“ I dunno ’s I have. I have n’t ever 
given her much chance.” 

“Wal, Ann Sarah, any child my 
mother has to raise is goin’ to keep her 
hands off other folks’ belongin’s. If 
I was you, I ’d try to find somethin’ 
better wuth worryin’ about.” 

By and by he asked a second time : 

‘‘ What ’s a-troublin’ you, Ann Sarah? 
Your face is as puckered up as a year- 
old apple.” 

“ I should just like to know what 
grandma is doing. I reckon she will 
about pump the well dry — ” 

“ If she is so feeble as you say, she 
[ 140 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


can’t pump long,” said Uncle Timothy; 
but his wife went on without noticing 
the interruption: 

“ ’T would be jest like her to wash 
the best chiny — ” 

“ Wal, it ’s hers, ain’t it? ” Uncle 
Timothy interrupted again. 

“Or to mess up the kitchen makin’ 
doughnuts, or cake, or something.” 

Uncle Timothy put his whip back in 
the socket and turned to his better half 
with that stiffening of the jaw which 
announced that the time had come when 
he would speak his mind. 

“ I should think, Ann Sarah, you ’d 
be glad if she can find some way of 
enjoyin’ herself, since you would n’t let 
her come along with us. If it was n’t 
for your bein’ so sot against it, she an’ 
Roxy might have occupied the spare 
seats in the carryall as well as not. The 
[ 141 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


drive, an’ seein’ so many folks, would 
chirk mother up considerable, an’ a 
little gal ought to have a good time 
« now an’ then, if you want her to be 
healthy an’ good. For my part, I 
should enjoy the trip twice as much 
if they was along.” 

This plain speaking, of course, made 
Aunt Ann Sarah furious. She lashed 
poor Uncle Timothy with her tongue 
until he was sore all over. Such out- 
bursts of temper are extremely upset- 
ting to the nervous system, and this, no 
doubt, was the cause of her headache. 
At all events, by the time she reached 
Sandwich she was completely out of 
sorts, and so cross that when a stylish 
vehicle with two bare-headed young 
girls in it passed Uncle Timothy’s 
carryall as they were driving into camp, 
she cried out savagely, to the noisy 
[ 142 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


amusement of three young men in a 
buggy: 

“ Wal, yer have n’t been spendin’ yer 
money on hats this summer, have yer? ” 

As this was the spirit in which she 
approached every one, contriving in 
each case to deliver herself of some 
offensive remark, it is unnecessary to 
say that she was not a social success. 

However, as they drove home in the 
cool of the evening her head felt better, 
and she made her peace with the world. 
Perhaps she realized the pettiness of 
the feeling which had deprived grand- 
mother and Roxy of a pleasant excur- 
sion, for she made up her mind to ask 
them both to sit on the porch that 
evening, and, if they had not in any 
way taken advantage of her absence, 
give them some of the damask roses 
they so admired. As they drove up to 
[ 143 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


the house she looked for the sweet old 
face usually in grandmother’s window, 
but for once it was not visible, and 
Aunt Ann Sarah stiffened a little with 
the suspicion that she and Roxy were 
occupying the parlor. 

A hasty glance through the shutters 
as she passed the parlor windows on the 
way to the kitchen door proved her 
fears unfounded. That sanctum sanc- 
torum wore its usual gloomy and un- 
inhabited air; the kitchen window was 
closed, but she saw that this room also 
was unoccupied. Its immaculate clean- 
liness was unsullied. There had been 
no fire in the stove. Everything was 
in apple-pie order. The chairs were 
ranged along the walls, as she had left 
them, and altogether the kitchen looked 
as if no one had entered it since she 
went away. 


[ 14)4 ] 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


Just at this moment some one hailed 
her. It was Mrs. Thomson, who, in the 
East Bowditch dialect, “ lived a piece 
further up on the road.” She stopped 
by the fence and said: 

“Did an awful lookin’ tramp come 
here to-day? ” 

Aunt Ann Sarah, who was the most 
non-committal of mortals, and would 
not for worlds have volunteered the 
information that she had been away 
all day, replied in a glum way that 
contrasted rather ludicrously with the 
affability of Mrs. Thomson: 

“ Not as I know of.” 

“ Wal, you would have known if he 
had, I reckon. Why, he frightened 
’Liza ’n’ me ’most to death. He asked 
fur somethin’ to eat, an’ while ’Liza 
was getting it he tried to push past 
me into the house. But I got the door 
10 [ 145 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


locked ’fore he could git in, an’ ’Liza, 
she handed him his vituals out the 
winder, an’ he was so mad he swore at 
us, an’ threw what we gave him on the 
ground. We saw him go down this 
way.” 

Aunt Ann Sarah, suspecting that 
Mrs. Thomson was tryin’ to patch up 
a peace and “ neighbor with her,” and 
not wishing to encourage her in that 
innocent desire, passed no remark. 
When Mrs. Thomson went on. Aunt 
Ann Sarah mounted the kitchen steps 
and tried the door. To her astonish- 
ment it was locked. 

This fact was instantly accounted 
for in her mind by the supposition 
that grandmother and Roxy had been 
frightened by the tramp of whom Mrs. 
Thomson had spoken. It was against 
Aunt Ann Sarah’s principles ever to 
[ 146 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


feed tramps; but she knew that grand- 
mother would sooner give away her own 
dinner than to turn away a hungry man 
from her door, and, as likely as not, in 
her ever-ready trust in all her fellow- 
creatures, she had even let him come 
into the house. 

“ If she has had trouble with him, 
I hope ’twill be a lesson to her,” said 
Aunt Ann Sarah to herself, as she 
knocked with no gentle hand upon the 
door. 

But her vigorous knocking brought 
no one to open it, and her calls, even 
her threats under grandmother’s win- 
dow, failed to elicit any response. At 
last the truth dawned upon her that the 
door had been locked upon the outside. 

It was the custom in East Bowditch, 
when one left one’s house alone, to lock 
the door and put the key under the 

[m] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 

door-mat, but of late years, on account 
of grandmother’s supposed ailments, 
which confined her so much to her 
room, this practice had not been re- 
sorted to at the Dillingham house. 
However, Aunt Ann Sarah instinc- 
tively lifted the mat, and there lay the 
key. 

As she entered the deserted house a 
cold shiver ran down her spine, and her 
heart beat as loud and hard as so very 
small a heart could beat. 

Having looked hurriedly over the 
house, she started for the barn to find 
Uncle Timothy, for she had now come 
to the conclusion that a search for the 
missing ones should be made at once. 

It had grown dark, and wherever 
they had gone, whether for a walk in 
the woods, or to call on some neighbor, 
or on some trumped-up errand to the 
[ D8 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


village (though this, by reason of the 
long walk it implied, seemed very im- 
probable), there was no imaginable 
reason, if no accident had happened, 
why they should not have returned by 
this time. In all her conjectures the 
figure of the tramp loomed large, and 
now, all at once, to leave an old lady 
like grandmother and a child alone by 
themselves all day looked blameworthy. 

Stepping out into the dooryard, she 
gave a glance down the road, and, far 
away in its dim perspective, she dis- 
cerned a dark object moving toward 
her. The dark object finally took shape 
to her eye as a vehicle, — a buggy, — 
in which, as it came yet nearer, she 
discovered a man and a child. 

While she stood there, straining her 
eyes to see who these persons might be, 
and wondering if they were bringing 
[ 149 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


bad news, the child waved to her. A 
moment more, and Roxy jumped out 
of the buggy, which then turned into 
the side road to the barn. 

Roxy came flying toward her and 
seized her by both hands. She was 
excited, and her voice shook with 
eagerness. 

‘‘ Oh, Aunt Ann Sarah, be glad with 
us!” she cried. “Father has come 
home! ” 

“ Good land! ” gasped her aunt, try- 
ing to free her hands from the child’s 
warm clasp. But Roxy held fast, 
moved by the desire, which had been 
steadily growing, to make every one a 
sharer in her joy. 

“ And he has bought back the farm 
at Hazeltown — ” 

“ Then he ain’t come home to be 
taken care of?” demanded her aunt. 

[ 150 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


‘‘No, indeed; he has lots of money. 
To-morrow grandmother and I are 
going with him to Boston to choose 
furniture. Oh, he is going to buy me 
a piano ; and the first thing I ’ll learn 
to play on it will be ‘ Home, Sweet 
Home,’ for there is nothing so dear 
and lovely as one’s home. And we will 
all have two homes. Aunt Ann Sarah,” 
Roxy panted on, “ for now ours will be 
yours, just as yours was ours all these 
long years. And, oh! I almost forgot 
to tell you that father is going to have 
a windmill put up here, so that you will 
have plenty of water. Is n’t that fine?” 

“ I guess he won't , snapped Aunt 
Ann Sarah, pulling herself sharply 
away. 

But Roxy, between laughing and 
crying, again captured her, put her 
young arms around her, enfolding her, 
[ 151 ] 


Old-Home JDay at Hazeltown 


for the first time in her life, perhaps, 
in a child’s warm love. 

“ Oh, yes, he will,” she cried, des- 
perately, for she began to fear that she 
would not gain her point. “ He prom- 
ised me he would, for we want you to 
be happy, too. We want you to be glad 
with us.” 

Aunt Ann Sarah was thus literally 
taken by storm. She had no defences 
left, no cause for resentment, wounded 
pride, envy, or sense of neglect. Roxy’s 
good-will and tact had effected the 
seemingly impossible, — the melting of 
her heart. 

“ Of course I ’m glad,” she said, with 
a little gulp as she swallowed her pride, 
“ an’ you deserve your good luck, Roxy. 
But for pity’s sake, child, don’t strangle 
me! Your pa ’s cornin’, an’ you ’re get- 
ting me all mussed up.” 

[ 152 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


CHAPTER TEN 

T he next year, when Home 
Week came around, there was 
a grand celebration at the 
Dillingham homestead. From every 
direction, by train, by automobile, by 
carriage, and by bicycle, came Dilling- 
hams to visit the spot where the first 
of their name had settled in the early 
history of their country. 

The first house, to be sure, had 
burned down, but it had been rebuilt 
by a Dillingham of the third genera- 
tion, so that it came very near being 
the cradle of the race. It had been 
furnished to look as nearly as possible 
as it had looked in the builder’s day. 
The old massive mahogany furniture 
that had looked so cumbersome and out 
[ 153 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


of place in the East Bowditch house 
had been put back just where it had 
stood when grandmother had gone 
there as a bride, and such pieces as 
had been needed beside had been 
chosen of the same style. The old 
musket, carried by a Dillingham in 
the Revolutionary War, and rescued 
twice by Roxy from Uncle Timothy’s 
old rubbish pile, was in its place over 
the parlor mantelpiece. In the corner- 
cupboard was the oldest old china, a 
watch a hundred years old, an ancient 
snuff-box, and various other articles 
which possessed a family interest or 
an interest to the lovers of the antique. 
The house was decorated for the occa- 
sion with flowers, and open to all, while 
on the grounds were tents, and chairs 
or settees were placed under the trees. 
But the chief and loveliest feature of 
[ 154 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


the place, so it was often said, was 
grandmother in her black silk and soft 
lace, with her white hair, and the fire 
of youth still in her dark eyes. Uncle 
Timothy and Aunt Ann Sarah were 
also present, the latter proud for once 
of being a Dillingham by marriage. 
She was a pleasanter woman than of 
yore, and though, as she was not given 
to flattery, Roxy had no first-hand 
knowledge of having won a high place 
in her regard, it had been reported to 
her that in public she eulogized her 
one-time “ encumberance ” in no stinted 
terms. 

In this large gathering Roxy had no 
difficulty in finding numerous young 
cousins, though for the most part of a 
very remote degree; but this fact was 
a matter which gave her no concern. 
They were certainly Dillinghams, and 
[ 155 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


they seemed very near. The relation- 
ship, too, in several cases, was not again 
to be lost sight of. Other meetings 
were planned, and invitations were 
given right and left, which, if accepted, 
would considerably extend Roxy’s ac- 
quaintance with the country, and render 
quite needless those imaginary trips 
from which she had so benefited in the 
past. And so many new correspond- 
ents were added to Roxy’s list that, as 
her father afterwards said, she ought 
to have a post-office box all to herself. 

At noon a banquet was spread in the 
largest tent, after which speeches were 
made. Grandmother had once told 
Roxy that the Dillinghams were of 
good old stock, but she was quite un- 
prepared to find so many distinguished 
people among them. There was an ex- 
senator from the West, and a profes- 
[ 156 ] 


Old-Home Hay at Hazeltown 


sor of one of the leading colleges in 
the East. There were lawyers and 
doctors of repute, clergymen galore, 
and soldiers who had served in the 
Civil and Spanish wars. But these 
eminent persons of the present were 
as nothing to those of the past. Old 
records had been searched, much to the 
inflation of the family pride, and a 
procession of noble ancestors passed 
by one’s inner eye, while the speakers 
recounted their exploits. 

After her astonishment passed away, 
Roxy began to feel uneasy, and to 
fldget restlessly in her seat between two 
new-found cousins, who already adored 
her. She began to think that it was 
time the family flag should be furled. 

“After all, the Dillingham family 
is n’t the only pebble on the beach,” she 
murmured. 


[ 157 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


This feeling of shamefacedness was 
at its height when the last speaker arose. 

He was an old man with silver-white 
hair, and the hale, wholesome look that 
was characteristic of the Dillinghams 
in old age. He, with his daughter and 
grandchildren, had travelled many miles 
to visit the family shrine. Though he 
had no title before his name, he gave 
a certain dignity to the assemblage, and 
his handsome old face had the beauty 
of one who has passed the years in 
love, charity, and peace. The old man’s 
speech was an amplification of the 
thought that had come to Roxy on the 
evening of her father’s return. 

“ A pride in one’s family, with a 
reverence for our ancestors,” he said 
in part, “ is natural and right, since it 
is an incentive to noble conduct; but 
it is a narrow and injurious pride, if 
[ 158 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


we do not, at the same time, realize our 
far greater, if common, privilege as 
members of the great human family, 
with its long, struggling past and in- 
finite possibilities; if we do not, at the 
same time, realize our still greater debt 
to those to whom the advance of man 
in the scale of being is due; and not 
only to these great ones of the past but 
also to those who, through the genera- 
tions, simply served to carry the race 
on, — humble links in the great chain. 

“ No, we must not limit our feeling 
of kinship to those of our own hneage. 
When this lovely day is spent, and we 
go our separate ways, let us expand the 
zone we have drawn in fancy around us 
to-day to include that great family who 
dwell with us in this beautiful world, 
— the ‘ Old Homestead of mankind.’ ” 

That arrogance was not one of the 
[ 159 ] 


Old-Home Day at Hazeltown 


characteristics of the Dillinghams was 
proved by the applause with which the 
old man’s speech was received; but, 
leading all the rest with the abandon 
of an earnest, enthusiastic nature, with 
her eyes wet, and burning cheeks, was 
Roxy, the happiest girl in Hazeltown. 



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Miss A. G. Plympton’s Stories 


DEAR DAUGHTER DOROTHY. With seven illustrations by 
the author. Small 4to, $ 1 . 00 . 

The winsome little maid, with her loyalty and love, attracts our hearts as Little Lord 
Fauntleroy has done, and reveals the divine element in childhood. — Christian Union. 

DOROTHY AND ANTON. A Sequel to “ Dear Daughter Dor- 
othy.” With illustrations by the author. Small 4to, ^i.oo. 

BETTY, A BUTTERFLY. Illustrated by the author. Small 
4to, $1.00. 

THE LITTLE SISTER OF WILIFRED. Illustrated by the 
author. Small 4to, $ 1 . 00 . 

ROBIN’S RECRUIT. Illustrated by the author. Small 4to, $1.00. 

PENELOPE PRIG, and Other Stories. Illustrated by the author. 
Small 4to, $1.00. 

THE BLACK DOG, and Other Stories. With illustrations by the 
author. i6mo, $1.25. 

WANOLASSET. (The-Little-One-Who-Laughs.) Illustrated by 
the author. Small 4to, $1.25. 

The story, although intended for the young, is so good a picture of early New England 
days that their elders can read it with interest and profit. — Public Opinion. 

RAGS AND VELVET GOWNS. Illustrated by the author. 
i2mo, 50 cents. 

An idyllic word picture, prettily illustrated by the author. — Saturday Everting Gazette. 

A BUD OF PROMISE. A Story for Ambitious Parents. i6mo, 
50 cents. 

A WILLING TRANSGRESSOR, and Other Stories. i6mo, 
$l-2S. 

A FLOWER OF THE WILDERNESS. With illustrations by 
the author. i2mo, $1.25. 

A CHILD OF GLEE. Illustrated. i2mo, $1.50. 

THE SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE WOODS. Illustrated. i2mo, 
$1.50.. 

OLD HOME DAY AT HAZELTOWN. Illustrated by Clara 
E. Atwood. i2mo, $1.25. 


LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY 

Publishers, 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 


ANNA CHAPIN RAY’S 

“TEDDY” STORIES 


Miss Ray’s work draws instant comparison with the best of Miss Alcott’s: first, 
because she has the same genuine sympathy with boy and girl life ; secondly, 
because she creates real characters, individual and natural, like the young people 
one knows, actually working out the same kind of problems ; and, finally, because 
her style of writing is equally unaffected and straightforward. — Christian Register ^ 
Boston. 


TEDDY: HER BOOK. A Story of Sweet Sixteen 
Illustrated by Vesper L. George. i2mo, $1.50. 

This bewitching story of “Sweet Sixteen,” with its earnestness, impetuosity, 
merry pranks, and unconscious love for her hero, has the same spring-like charm. — 
Kate Sanborn. 

PHEBE: HER PROFESSION. A Sequel to “Teddy: 

Her Book” 

Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. i2mo. $1.50. 

This is one of the few books written for young people in which there is to be 
found the same vigor and grace that one demands in a good story for older people. 
— Worcester Spy. 

TEDDY: HER DAUGHTER 

A Sequel to “Teddy: Her Book,” and “ Phebe ; Her Profession” 
Illustrated by J. B. Graff. i2mo. $1.50. 

It is a human story, all the characters breathing life and activity. — Buffalo Times. 

NATHALIE’S CHUM 

Illustrated by Ellen Bernard Thompson. i2mo, $1.50. 

Nathalie is the sort of a young girl whom other girls like to read about. — Hartford 
Courani. 

URSULA’S FRESHMAN. A Sequel to “Nathalie’s Chum” 

Illustrated by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. i2mo. $1.50. 

The best of a series already the best of its kind. — Boston Herald. 

NATHALIE’S SISTER. ^ Sequel to “ Ursula’s Fresh- 

XT1HH 

Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. i2mo. $1.50. 

Peggy, the heroine, is a most original little lady who says and does all sorts of 
interesting things. She has pluck and spirit, and a temper, but she is very lovable, 
and girls will find her delightful to read ^hovX.— Louisville Evening Post. 


LITTLE, BROWN, COMPANY, Publishers 

254 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 


HELEN LEAH REED’S 

“BRENDA” BOOKS 


BRENDA, HER SCHOOL AND HER CLUB 

Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. i2mo. $1.50. 

The Boston Herald says : “ Miss Reed’s girls have all the impulses and likes of 
real girls as their characters are developing, and her record of their thoughts and 
actions reads like a chapter snatched from the page of life. It is bright, genial, 
merry, wholesome, and full of good characterizations.” 

BRENDA’S SUMMER AT ROCKLEY 

Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, i2mo. $1.50. 

A charming picture of vacation life along the famous North Shore of Massachu. 
setts. 

The Otitlook says: ” The author is one of the best equipped of our writers for 
girls of larger growth. Her stories are strong, intelligent, and wholesome.” 

BRENDA’S COUSIN AT RADCLIFFE 

Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. i2mo. $1.50. 

A remarkably real and fascinating story of a college girl’s career, excelling 11: 
interest Miss Reed’s first ” Brenda ” book. The Providence News says ot it : 
” No better college story has been written.” The author is a graduate of Radcliffe 
College which she describes. 

BRENDA’S BARGAIN 

Illustrated. i2mo. $1.50. 

“The fourth and last of the ‘Brenda’ books,” says The Bookman, “deals with 
social settlement work, under conditions with which the author is familiar.” The 
Bost07t Transcript adds : “ This book is by far the best of the series.” 


LITTLE, BROWN, id COMPANY, Publishers 

154 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 


New Illustrated Editions of 
Miss Alcott’s Famous Stories 


THE LITTLE WOMEN SERIES 

By Louisa M. Alcott. Illustrated Edition. With eighty-four 
full-page plates from drawings especially made for this edition by 
Reginald B. Birch, Alice Barber Stephens, Jessie Willcox Smith, 
and Harriet Roosevelt Richards. Svols. Crown 8vo. Decorated 
cloth, gilt, in box, $ 16 . 00 . 

Separately as follows : 

1. LITTLE MEN: Life at Plumfield with Jo’s Boys 

With 15 full-page illustrations by Reginald B. Birch. |2.oo. 

2. LITTLE WOMEN : or Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy 

With 15 full-page illustrations by Alice Barber Stephens. $ 2 . 00 . 

3. AN OLD-FASHIONED GIRL 

With 12 full-page pictures by Jessie Willcox Smith. $2.00. 

4. JO’S BOYS, and How They Turned Out 

A Sequel to “ Little Men.” With 10 full-page plates by Ellen Wetherald 
Ahrens. $ 2 . 00 . 

5. EIGHT COUSINS ; or, the Aunt-Hill 

With 8 full-page pictures by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. 

6. ROSE IN BLOOM 

A Sequel to “ Eight Cousins.” With 8 full-page pictures by Harriet 
Roosevelt Richards. $ 2 . 00 . 

7. UNDER THE LILACS 

With 8 original full-page pictures by Alice Barber Stephens. $2.00. 

5. JACK AND JILL 

With 8 full-page pictures from drawings by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. 
$ 2 . 00 . 

The artists selected to illustrate have caught the spirit of the originals and contributed a 
series of strikingly beautiful and faithful pictures of the author’s characters and scenes. — 
Boston Herald. 

Alice Barber Stephens, who is very near the head of American illustrators, has shown 
wonderful ability in delineating the characters and costumes for “Little Women.” They are 
almost startlingly realistic. — W orcester Spy. 

Miss Alcott’s books have never before had such an attractive typographical dress as the 
tresent. They are printed in large type on heavy paper, artistically bound, and illustrated 
vith many full-page drawings. — Philadelphia Press. 


LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY 

Publishers, 254 WASHINGTOH STREET, BOSTON, MASS- 























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